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AMERICAN    REPUBLIC: 


CONSTITUTION,  TENDENCIES,  AND  DESTCsT 


,1' 


BT 


Students  Library 


Santa  Barbara,  California 


New  EDiTioi»f. 


NEW  YOEK: 
P-   O'SHEA,     45  WARREN  STREET. 


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entered  Moordtng  to  Act  of  Conjrress,  In  the  yew  18«6, 

Bt  p.  OS  he  a, 

Ikl  tfc«  Clerk'*  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for  tiM 
Bonthem  District  of  New  York. 


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TO    THE 

HON.   GEORGE  BANCROFT, 

THE    BTlTrDITE,     PHILOSOPHICAL,     AND    BLOQUEKT 

ll^igtorian  of  tfit  Winitti  SinUs. 

XBIB  FEEBLE   ATTEMPT   TO   SET   FORTH   THE   PRINCIPLES   OP   GOVERN- 
MENT,   AND   TO    EXPLAIN    AXD    DEE'END    THE    CONSTITUTION   OP 
THE   AMERICAN   REPUBLIC,    IS   RESPECTFULLY   DEDICATED, 
IN  MBMOHT   OF   OLD    FRIENDSHIP,   AND    AS  A 
BLIGHT   HOMAGE   TO   GENIUS,    ABILITY 
PATRIOTISM,    PRIVATE    WORTH, 
AND   PUBLIC   SERVICE, 

'     BY  THE  AUTflOB. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I.  pAo> 

INTRODVCTION. 1 

CHAPTER  n. 

GOVERNMENT. 18 

CHAPTER  'in. 

^ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT S< 


CHAPTER  IV. 

ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT— GwtvwHid 4S 


CHAPTER  V. 

■ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT— Continued Tl 

CHAPTER  VL 

ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT— Cmcluded 106 

CHAPTER  VIL 

CONSTITUTION  OF  GOVERNMENT \» 


ri  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  VIIL  ,x«» 

COirSTITXmON  of  QOVERyME^rT—Ooneludtd IW 

CHAPTER  IX. 

TEE  UNITED  STATES IW 

CHAPTER  X. 

CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES ^ SI 

CHAPTER  XL 

THE  CONSTITUTION— OotiHnwd S4* 

CHAPTER  XII. 
SECESSION. rr 

CHAPTER  Xm. 

RECONSTRUCTION. 80» 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

POLITICAL  TENDENCIES 848 

CHAPTER  XV. 

DESTINY— POLITICAL  A2n>  RELIGIOUS. Mft 


PREFACE. 


In"  the  volume  wMch,  with  much  diffidence,  is 
here  offered  to  the  public,  I  have  given,  as  far  as 
I  have  considered  it  worth  giving,  my  whole 
thought  in  a  connected  form  on  the  nature,  ne- 
cessity, extent,  authority,  origin,  ground,  and 
constitution  of  government,  and  the  unity,  na- 
tionality, constitution,  tendencies,  and  destiny 
of  the  American  Republic.  Many  of  the  points 
treated  have  been  from  time  to  time  discussed  or 
touched  upon,  and  many  of  the  views  have  been 
presented,  in  my  previous  writings ;  but  this 
work  is  newly  and  independently  written  from 
beginning  to  end,  and  is  as  complete  on  the 
topics  treated  as  I  have  been  able  to  make  it. 

I  have  taken  nothing  bodily  from  my  previous 
essays,  but  I  have  used  their  thoughts  as  far  as 
I  have  judged  them  sound  and  they  came  within 
the  scope  of  my  present  wor&.  I  have  not  felt 
myself  bound  to  adhere  to  my  own  past  thoughts 
or  expressions  any  farther  than  they  coincide 
with  my  present  convictions,  and  I  have  written 
as  freely  and  as  independently  as  if  I  had  never 


VUl  PBEF  ACE  . 

written  oi  puMished  any  thing  before.  I  have 
never  been  the  slave  of  my  own  past,  and  truth 
has  always  been  dearer  to  me  than  my  own  opin- 
ions. This  work  is  not  only  my  latest,  but  wiU 
be  my  last  on  politics  or  government,  and  must 
be  taken  as  the  authentic,  a  ad  the  only  authentic 
statement  of  my  political  views  and  convictions, 
and  whatever  in  any  of  my  previous  writings 
conflicts  with  the  principles  defended  in  its  pages, 
must  be  regarded  as  retracted,  and  rejected. 

The  work  now  produced  is  based  on  scientific 
principles  ;  but  it  is  an  essay  rather  than  a  scien- 
tific treatise,  and  even  good-natured  critics  will, 
no  doubt,  pronounce  it  an  article  or  a  series  of 
articles  designed  for  a  review,  rather  than  a  book. 
It  is  hard  to  overcome  the  habits  of  a  lifetime.  I 
have  taken  some  pains  to  exchange  the  reviewer 
for  the  author,  but  am  fully  conscious  that  I 
have  not  succeeded.  My  work  can  lay  claim  to 
very  little  artistic  merit.  It  is  full  of  repetitions  ; 
the  same  thought  is  frequently  recurring, — the  re- 
sult, to  some  extent,  no  doubt,  of  carelessness 
and  the  want  of  artistic  skill ;  but  to  a  greater  ex- 
tent, I  fear,  of  "malice  aforethought."  In  com- 
posing my  work  I  have  followed,  rather  than  di- 
rected, the  course  of  ray  thought,  and,  having  very 
little  confidence  in  the  memoiy  or  industry  of 
readers,  I. have  preferred,  when  the  completeness 


PEEFACE.  ,  iX 

^of  the  argument  required  it,  to  repeat  myself  to 
'encumbering  my  pages  with  perpetual  references 
to  what  has  gone  before. 

That  I  attach  some  value  to  this  work  is  evi- 
dent from  my  consenting  to  its  publication  ;  but 
how  much  or  how  little  of  it  is  really  mine,  I  am 
quite  unable  to  say.  I  have,  from  my  youth  up, 
been  reading,  observing,  thinking,  reflecting, 
talking,  I  had  almost  said  writing,  at  least  by  fits 
and  starts,  on  political  subjects,  especially  in 
their  connection  with  philosophy,  theology,  his- 
tory, a  ad  social  progress,  and  have  assimilated 
to  my  own  mind  what  it  would  assimilate,  with- 
out keeping  any  notes  of  the  sources  whence  the 
materials  assimilated  were  derived.  I  have  writ- 
ten freely  from  my  own  mind  as  I  find  it  now 
formed  ;  but  how  it  has  been  so  formed,  or 
whence  I  have  borrowed,  my  readers  know  as  well 
as  I.  All  that  is  valuable  in  the  thoughts  set  forth, 
it  is  safe  to  assume  has  been  appropriated  from 
others.  Where  I  have  been  distinctly  conscious 
•of  borrowing  what  has  not  become  common 
property,  I  have  given  credit,  or,  at  least,  men- 
tioned the  author's  name,  with  three  important 
^exceptions  which  I  wish  to  note  more  formally. 

I  am  principally  indebted  for  the  view  of 
American  nationality  and  the  Federal  Constitu 
tion  I  present,  to  hints  and  suggf^stions  furnished 


PBEr ACE 


by  the  remarkable  work  of  John  C.  Hurd,  Esq.>. 
on  The  Law  of  Freedom  and  Bondage  in  the 
United  States,  a  work  of  rare  learning  and  pro- 
found philosophic  views.      I    could  not    have 
written  my  work  without  the  aid  derived  from 
its  suggestions,  any  more  than  I  could  without  Pla- 
to, Aristotle,  St.  Augustine,  St.  Thomas,  Suarez, 
Pierre  Leroux,  and  the  Abbate  Gioberti.      To. 
these  two  last-named  authors,  one  a  humanita- 
rian sophist,  the  other  a  Catholic  priest,  and  cer- 
tainly one  of  the  profoundest  philosophical  wri* 
ters  of  this  century,  I  am  much  indebted,  though. 
I  have  followed  the  political  system  of  neither. 
I  have  taken  from  Leroux  the  germs  of   the- 
doctrine  I  set  fortk  on  the  solidarity  of  the  race,, 
and  from  Gioberti  the  doctrine  I  defend  in  rela- 
tion to  the  creative  act,  which  is,  after  all,  simply 
that  of  the  Credo  and  the  first  verse  of  Genesis. 

In  treating  the  several  questions  which  the  pre- 
paration of  this  volume  has  brought  up,  in  their 
connection,  and  in  the  light  of  first  principles,  L 
liave  clianged  or  modified,  on  more  than  one  im- 
portant point,  the  views  1  had  expressed  in  my 
previous  writings,  especially  on  the  distinction 
between  civilized  and  barbaric  nations,  the  real 
basis  of  civilization  itself,  and  the  value  to  the 
world  of  the  Grseco- Roman  civilization.  I  have- 
ranked  feudalism  under  the  head  of  barbarism. 


PB  E  F  A  C  B  ZI^ 

rejected  every  species  of  political  aristocracy^ 
and  represented  the  English  constitution  as  es- 
sentially antagonistic  to  the  American,  not  as  it» 
type.  I  have  accepted  universal  suffrage  in 
principle,  and  defended  American  democracy^ 
which  I  define  to  be  territorial  democracy,  and 
carefully  distinguish  from  pure  individualism  on. 
the  one  hand,  and  from  pure  socialism  or  human- 
itarianism  on  the  other. 

I  reject  the  doctrine  of  State  sovereignty,  which 
I  held  and  defended  from  1828  to  1861,  but  stilt 
maintain  that  the  sovereignty  of  the  American 
Republic  vests  in  the  States,  though  in  the  States- 
collectively,  or  united,  not  severally,  and  thus- 
escape  alike  consolidation  and  disintegration.  I 
find,  with  Mr.  Madison,  our  most  philosophic- 
statesman,  the  originality  of  the  American  sys- 
tem in  the  division  of  powers  between  a  General 
government  having  sole  charge  of  the  foreign 
and  general,  and  particular  or  State  governments; 
'having,  within  their  respective  territories,  sole^ 
charge  of  the  particular  relations  and  interests  of 
the  American  people  ;  but  I  do  not  accept  his: 
concession  that  this  division  is  of  conventional 
origin,  and  maintain  that  it  enters  into  the  origi- 
nal Providential  constitution  of  the  American 
state,  as  I  have  done  in  my  Review  for  October^ 
1863,  and  January  and  October,  1864. 


Xa,  P  B  E  F  A  C  E  . 

I  maintain,  after  Mr.  Senator  Snmner,  one  of 
the  most  philosophic  and  accomplished  living 
American  statesmen,  that  "  State  secession  is 
State  suicide,"  but  modify  the  opinion  I  too  hast- 
ily expressed  that  the  political  death  of  a  State 
dissolves  civil  society  within  its  t<^rritory  and  ab- 
rogates all  rights  held  under  it,  and  accept  the 
doctrine  that  the  laws  in  force  at  the  time  of  seces- 
sion remain  in  force  till  superseded  or  abrogated 
by  competent  authority,  and  also  that,  till  the  State 
is  revived  and  restored  as  a  State  in  the  Union, 
the  only  authority,  under  the  American  system, 
competent  to  supersede  or  abrogate  them  is  the 
United  States,  not  Congress,  far  less  the  Execu- 
tive. The  error  of  the  Government  is  not  in  re- 
cognizing the  territorial  laws  as  surviving  seces- 
sion, but  in  counting  a  State  that  has  seceded  as 
stiU  a  State  in  the  Union,  with  the  right  to  be 
counted  as  one  of  the  United  States  in  amending 
the  Constitution.  Such  State  goes  out  of  the 
Union,  but  comes  under  it. 

I  have  endeavored  throughout  to  refer  my  par- 
ticular political  views  to  their  general  principles, 
and  to  show  that  the  general  principles  asserted 
have  their  origin  and  ground  in  the  great,  univer- 
sal, and  unchanging  principles  of  the  universe  it- 
«elf.  Hence,  I  have  labored  to  show  the  scientific 
relations  of  .political  to  theological  principles,  the 


P  B  E  P  A  G  B  .  Xm. 

real  principles  of  all  science,  as  of  all  reality. 
An  atheist,  I  have  said,  may  be  a  politician*;  but 
if  there  were  no  God,  tliere  could  be  no  politics. 
This  may  offend  the  sciolists  of  the  age,  but  I 
must  follow  science  where  it  leads,  and  cannot 
be  arrested  by  those  who  mistake  their  darkness 
for  light. 

I  write  throughout  as  a  Christian,  because  I 
am  a  Christian  ;  as  a  Catholic,  because  all  Chris- 
tian principles,  nay,  all  real  principles  are  cath 
olic,  and  there  is  nothing  sectarian  either  in  na- 
ture or  revelation.  I  am  a  Catholic  by  God's 
grace  and  great  goodness,  and  must  write  as  1 
am.  I  could  not  write  otherwise  if  I  would,  and 
would  not  if  I  could.  I  have  not  obtruded  my 
religion,  and  have  referred  to  it  only  where  my 
argument  demanded  it ;  but  I  have  had  neither 
the  weakness  nor  the  bad  taste  to  seek  to  con- 
ceal or  disguise  it.  I  could  never  have  writ- 
ten my  book  without  the  knowledge  I  have,  as  a 
Catholic,  of  Catholic  theology,  and  my  acquaint- 
ance, slight  as  it  is,  with  the  great  fathers  and 
doctors  of  the  church,  the  great  masters  of  all 
that  is  solid  or  permanent  in  modern  thought, 
either  with  Catholics  or  non-Catholics. 

Moreover,  though  I  write  for  all  Americana, 
without  distinction  of  sect  or  party,  I  have  had 
more  especiallv  in  view  the  people  of  my  own 


AJT.  P  B  E  F  A  C  E  . 

religious  communion.  It  is  no  discredit  to  a 
man  In  the  United  States  at  the  present  day  to 
be  a  firm,  sincere,  and  devout  Catholic.  The 
old  sectarian  prejudice  may  remain  with  a  few, 
"whose  eyes,"  as  Emerson  says,  "are  in  their 
hind-head,  not  in  their  fore-head;"  but  the 
American  people  are  not  at  heart  sectarian,  and 
the  nothingarianism  so  prevalent  among  them 
•only  marks  their  state  of  transition  from  secta- 
rian opinions  to  positive  Catholic  faith.  At 
any  rate,  it  can  no  longer  be  denied  that  Catho- 
lics are  an  integral,  living,  and  growing  element 
in  the  American  population,  quite  too  numerous, 
4oo  wealthy,  and  too  influential  to  be  ignored. 
They  have  played  too  conspicuous  a  part  in  the 
late  troubles  of  the  country,  and  poured  out  too 
freely  and  too  much  of  their  richest  and  noblest 
blood  in  defence  of  the  unity  of  the  nation  and 
the  integrity  of  its  domain,  for  that.  Catholics 
henceforth  must  be  treated  as  standing,  in  all 
respects,  on  a  footing  of  equality  with  any  other 
•class  of  American  citizens,  and  their  views  of 
political  science,  or  of  any  other  science,  be 
counted  of  equal  importance,  and  listened  to 
with  equal  attention. 

I  have  no  fears  that  my  book  will  be  neg- 
lected because  avowedly  by  a  Catholic  author, 
'And  from  a  Catholic  publishing  house.     They 


PBEFACE  Xr 

^who  are  not  Catholics  *  will  read  it,  and  it  will 
•enter  into  the  current  of  American  literature,  if  it 
is  one  they  must  read  in  order  to  be  up  with  the 
living  and  growing  thought  of  the  age.  If  it  is 
not  a  book  of  that  sort,  it  is  not  worth  reading 
by  any  one. 

Furthermore,  I  am  ambitious,  even  in  my  old 
^age,  and  I  wish  to  exert  an  influence  on  the 
future  of  my  country,  for  which  I  have  made, 
•or,  rather,  my  family  have  made,  some  sacrifices, 
and  which  I  tenderly  love.  Now,  i  believe  that 
■he  who  can  exert  the  most  influence  on  our  Cath- 
'Olic  population,  especially  in  giving  tone  and  di- 
rection to  our  Catholic  youth,  will  exert  the  most 
influence  in  forming  the  character  and  shaping 
the  future  destiny  of  the  American  Republic. 
Ambition  and  patriotism  alike,  as  well  as  my 
•own  Catholic  faith  and  sympathies,  induce  me 
to  address  myself  primarily  to  Catholics.  I  qjiar- 
rel  with  none  of  the  sects  ;  I  honor  virtue  wher- 
ever I  see  it,  and  accept  truth  wherever  I  find  it ; 
but,  in  my  belief,  no  sect  is  destined  to  a  long  life, 
or  a  permanent  possession,  I  engage  in  no  con- 
troversy with  any  one  not  of  my  religion,  for,  if 
i;he  positive,  affirmative  truth  is  brought  out  and 
placed  in  a  clear  light  before  the  public,  what- 
•ever  is  sectarian  in  any  of  the  s^^cts  will  disap- 
pear as  the  morning  mists  before  the  rising  sun. 


rVl  PRE  FA  CE, 


I  expect  the  most  inte*lligent  and  satisfactory 
appreciation  of  my  book  from  the  thinking  and 
educated  classes  among  Catholics  ;  bnt  I  speak 
to  my  countrymen  at  large.  I  could  not  person- 
ally serve  my  country  in  the  field :  my  habits  as 
well  as  my  infirmities  prevented,  to  say  nothing 
of  my  age  ;  but  I  have  endeavored  in  this  hum- 
ble work  to  add  my  contribution,  small  though 
it  may  'be,  to  political  science,  and  to  discharge, 
as  far  as  I  am  able,  my  debt  of  loyalty  and  patri- 
otism. I  would  the  book  were  more  of  a  book, 
more  worthy  of  my  countrymen,  and  a  more 
weighty  proof  of  the  love  I  bear  them,  and 
with  which  I  have  written  it.  All  I  can  say  is, 
that  it  is  an  honest  book,  a  sincere  book,  and 
contains  my  best  thoughts  on  the  subjects 
treated.  If  well  received,  I  shall  be  grateful ;  if 
neglected,  I  shaU  endeavor  to  pra«tise  resigna- 
tion, as  I  have  so  often  done. 

O.  A.  Brownson. 

Elizabeth,  N.  J.,  September  16,  1865. 


THE  AMEEICAN  KEPUBLIC. 


CHAPTER  L 

■  INTRODUCTION. 

The  ancients  summed  up  the  whole  of  human 
wisdom  in  the  maxim,  Know  Thyself,  and  cer- 
tainly there  is  for  an  individual  no  more  impor- 
tant as  there  is  no  more  difficult  knowledge, 
than  knowledge  of  himself,  whence  he  comes, 
whither  he  goes,  what  he  is,  what  he  is  for, 
what  he  can  do,  what  he  ought  to  do,  and 
what  are  his  means  of  doing  it. 

Nations  are  only  individuals  on  a  larger  scale. 
They  have  a  life,  an  individuality,  a  reason,  a 
conscience,  and  instincts  of  their  own,  and  have 
the  same  general  laws  of  development  and 
growth,  and,  perhaps,  of  decay,  as  the  individ- 
ual man.  Equally  important,  and  no  less  diffi- 
cult than  for  the  individual,  is  it  for  a  nation 
to  know  itself,  understand  its  own  exist- 
ence, its  own  powers  and  faculties,  rights  and 
duties,  constitution,  instincts,  tendencies,  and 

2 


3  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

destiny.  A  nation  lias  a  spiritual  as  well  as  a 
material,  a  moral  as  well  as  a  physical  existence, 
and  is  subjected  to  internal  as  well  as  external 
conditions  of  health  and  virtue,  greatness  and 
grandeur,  which  it  must  in  some  measure  un- 
derstand and  observe,  or  become  weak  and 
infii-m,  stunted  in  its  growth,  and  end  in  pre- 
mature decay  and  death. 

Among  nations,  no  one  has  more  need  of  full 
knowledge  of  itself  than  the  United  States,  and 
no  one  has  hitherto  had  less.  It  has  hardly 
had  a  distinct  consciousness  of  its  own  national 
existence,  and  has  lived  the  irreflective  life  of 
the  child,  with  no  severe  trial,  till  the  recent 
rebellion,  to  throw  it  back  on  itself  and  compel 
it  to  reflect  on  its  own  constitution,  its  own 
separate  existence,  individuality,  tendencies, 
and  end.  The  defection  of  the  slaveholding 
States,  and  the  fearful  struggle  that  has  fol- 
lowed for  national  unity  and  integrity,  have 
brought  it  at  once  to  a  distinct  recognition 
of  itself,  and  forced  it  to  pass  from  thought- 
less, careless,  heedless,  reckless  adolescence  to 
grave  and  reflecting  manhood.  The  nation  has 
been  suddenly  compelled  to  study  itself,  and 
henceforth  must  act  from  reflection,  understand- 
ing, science,  statesmanship,-  not  from  instinct, 
impulse,  passion,  or  caprice,  knowing  well  what 


NTKODUCTION.  3 

ft  aoes,  and  wiieiefore  it  does  it.  The  change 
whicli  four  yeai«  <»^'  civil  war  have  wrought  in 
the  nation  is  gr«^«  ,  and  is  sure  to  give  it  the 
seriousness,  the  g  avity,  the  dignity,  the  man- 
liness it  has  heretofore  lacked. 

Though  the  nation  has  been  brought  to  a 
consciousness  of  its  own  existence,  it  has  not 
even  yet,  attained  to  a  full  and  clear  under- 
standing of  its  own  national  constitution.  Its 
vision  is  stiU  obscured  by  the  floating  mists 
of  its  earlier  morning,  and  its  judgment  ren- 
dered indistinct  and  indecisive  by  the  wild 
theories  and  fancies  of  its  childhood.  The  na- 
tional mind  has  been  quickened,  the  national 
heart  has  been  opened,  the  national  disposition 
prepared,  but  there  remains  the  important  work 
of  dissipating  the  mists  that  still  linger,  of 
brushing  away  these  wild  theories  and  fancies, 
and  of  enabling  it  to  foim  a  clear  and  intelligent 
judgment  of  itself,  and  a  true  and  just  appre 
ciation  of  its  own  constitution,  tendencies,  and 
destiny,  or,  in  other  words,  of  enabling  the 
nation  to  understand  its  own  idea,  and  the 
means  of  its  actualization  in  space  and  time. 

Every  living  nation  has  an  idea  given  it  by 
Providence  to  realize,  and  whose  realization  is 
its  special  work,  mission,  or  destiny.  Every 
nation  is,  in  some  sense,  a  chosen  people  of 


4  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC 

God.     The  Jews  were  the  chosen  people  of 
God,  through  whom  the  primitive  traditions 
were  to  be  preserved  in  their  purity  and  infceg 
rity,  and  the  Messiah  was  to  come    The  Greeks 
were  the  chosen  people  of  God,  for  the  develop 
ment  and  realization  of  the  beautiful   or  the 
divine  splendor  in  art,  and  of  the  true  in  science 
and  philosophy ;  and  the  Romans,  for  the  do 
velopment  of  the  state,  law,  and  jurisprudence 
The  great  despotic  nations  of  Asia  were  nevei 
properly  nations ;  or  if  they  were  nations  with 
a  mission,  they  proved  false  to  it,  and  count  foi 
nothing  in  the  progressive  development  of  the 
human  race.     History  has  not  recorded  theii 
mission,  and  as  far  as  they  are  knovna  they 
have  contributed  only  to  the  abnormal  develop 
ment  or  corruption  of  religion  and  civilization 
Despotism  is  barbaric  and  abnormal 

The  United  States,  or  the  American  Repul. 
lie,  has  a  mission,  and  is  chosen  of  God  for  thf 
realization  of  a  great  idea.  It  has  been  chosen 
not  only  to  continue  the  work  assigned  to 
Greece  and  Rome,  but  to  accomplish  a  greater 
work  than  was  assigned  to  either.  In  art,  it  will 
prove  false  to  its  mission  if  it  do  not  rival  Greece : 
and  in  science  and  philosophy,  if  it  do  not  snr 
pass  it.  In  the  state,  in  law,  in  jurisprudence, 
it  must  continue  and  surpass  Rome      Eta  ides 


INTRODUOTION.  5 

IS  liberty,  indeed,  but  liberty  witb  law,  and  law 
with  liberty.  Yet  its  mission  is  not  so  much 
the  realization  of  liberty  as  the  realization  of 
the  true  idea  of  the  state,  which  secures  at  once 
the  authority  of  the  public  and  the  freedom  of 
the  individual — the  sovereignty  of  the  people 
without  social  despotism,  and  individual  free- 
dom without  anarchy.  In  other  words,  its 
mission  is  to  bring  out  in  its  life  the  dialectic 
union  of  authority  and  liberty,  of  the  natural 
rights  of  man  and  those  of  society.  The  Greek 
and  Roman  republics  asserted  the  state  to 
the  detriment  of  individual  freedom;  modern 
republics  either  do  the  same,  or  assert  indi- 
vidual freedom  to  the  detriment  of  the  state. 
The  American  republic  has  been  instituted  by 
Providence  to  realize  the  freedom  of  each  with 
advantage  to  the  other. 

The  real  mission  of  the  United  States  is  to 
introduce  and  establish  a  political  constitution, 
which,  while  it  retains  all  the  advantages  of  the 
constitutions  of  states  thus  far  known,  is  unlike 
any  of  them,  and  secures  advantages  which  none 
of  them  did  or  could  possess.  The  American 
constitution  has  no  prototype  in  any  prior  con- 
stitution. The  American  form  of  government 
can  be  classed  throughout  with  none  of  the 
forms  of  government  described  by  Aristotle,  or 


6  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIO. 

even  by  later  authorities.  Aristotle  knew  only 
four  forms  of  government :  Monarchy,  Aristoc- 
racy, Democracy,  and  Mixed  Governments.  The 
American  form  is  none  of  these,  nor  any  com- 
bination of  them.  It  is  original,  a  new  con- 
tribution to  political  science,  and  seeks  to  attain 
the  end  of  all  wise  and  just  government  by 
means  unknown  or  forbidden  to  the  ancients, 
and  which  have  been  but  imperfectly  compre- 
hended even  by  American  political  writers  them- 
selves. The  originality  of  the  American  con- 
stitution has  been  overlooked  by  the  great 
majority  even  of  our  own  statesmen,  who  seek 
to  explain  it  by  analogies  borrowed  from  the 
constitutions  of  other  states  rather  than  by  a 
profound  study  of  its  own  principles.  They 
have  taken  too  low  a  view  of  it,  and  have 
rarely,  if  ever,  appreciated  its  distinctive  and 
peculiar  merits. 

As  the  United  States  have  vindicated  theii 
national  unity  and  integrity,  and  are  preparing 
to  take  a  new  start  in  history,  nothing  is  more 
important  than  that  they  should  take  that  new 
start  with  a  clear  and  definite  view  of  their 
national  constitution,  and  with  a  distinct  un- 
derstanding of  their  political  mission  in  the  fu- 
ture of  the  world.  The  citizen  who  can  help  his 
countrymen  to  do  this  will  render  them  an  im- 


INTRODUCTION.  7 

portant  service  and  deserve  well  of  his  country, 
though  he  may  have  been  unable  to  serve  in  her 
Urmies  and  defend  her  on  the  battle-field.  The 
work  now  to  be  done  by  American  statesmen 
is  even  more  difficult  and  more  delicate  than 
that  which  has  been  accomplished  by  our  brave 
armies.  As  yet  the  people  are  hardly  better 
prepared  for  the  political  work  to  be  done  than 
they  were  at  the  outbreak  of  the  civil  war  for 
the  military  work  they  have  so  nobly  achieved. 
But,  with  time,  patience,  and  good-will,  the 
difficulties  may  be  overcome,  the  errors  of  the 
past  corrected,  and  the  Government  placed  on 
the  right  track  for  the  future. 

It  will  hardly  be  questioned  that  either  the 
constitution  of  the  United  States  is  very  defec- 
tive or  it  has  been  very  grossly  misinterpreted 
by  all  parties.  If  the  slave  States  had  not  held 
that  the  States  are  severally  sovereign,  and  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  a  simple 
agreement  or  compact,  they  would  never  have 
seceded;  and  if  the  Free  States  had  not  con- 
founded the  Union  with  the  General  govern- 
ment, and  shown  a  tendency  to  make  it  the 
entire  national  government,  no  occasion  or 
pretext  for  secession  would  have  been  given. 
The  great  problem  of  our  statesmen  has  been 
from  the  first.  How  to  assert  union  without 


6  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

consolidation,  and  State  rights  without  disin> 
tegration?  Have  they,  as  yet,  solved  that 
problem?  The  war  has  silenced  the  State' 
sovereignty  doctrine,  indeed,  but  has  it  done 
so  without  lesion  to  State  rights  ?  Has  it  done 
it  without  asserting  the  General  government 
as  the  supreme,  central,  or  national  govern- 
ment ?  Has  it  done  it  without  striking  a  dan- 
gerous blow  at  the  federal  element  of  the  con- 
stitution ?  In  suppressing  by  armed  force  the 
doctrine  that  the  States  are  severally  sovereign, 
what  barrier  is  left  against  consolidation  ?  Has 
not  one  danger  been  removed  only  to  give  place 
to  another  ? 

But  perhaps  the  constitution  itself,  if  rightly 
understood,  solves  the  problem;  and  perhaps 
the  problem  itself  is  raised  precisely  through 
misunderstanding  of  the  constitution.  Our 
statesmen  have  recognized  no  constitution  of 
the  American  people  themselves;  they  have 
confined  their  views  to  the  written  constitu- 
tion, as  if  that  constituted  the  American  people 
a  state  or  nation,  instead  of  being,  as  it  is,  only 
a  law  ordained  by  the  nation  already  existing 
and  constituted.  Perhaps,  if  they  had  recog- 
nized and  studied  the  constitution  which  pre- 
ceded that  drawn  up  by  the  Convention  of 
1787,  and  which  is  intrinsic,  inherent  in  the 


INTRODUCTION".  0 

republic  itself,  they  would  have  seen  that  it 
solves  the  problem,  and  asserts  national  unity 
without  consolidation,  and  the  rights  of  the 
several  States  without  danger  of  disintegration. 
The  whole  controversy,  possibly,  has  originated 
in  a  misunderstanding  of  the  real  constitution 
of  the  United  States,  and  that  misunderstanding 
itself  in  the  misunderstanding  of  the  origin  and 
constitution  of  government  in  general.  The 
constitution,  as  will  appear  in  the  course  of 
this  essay,  is  not  defective ;  and  all  that  is  ne- 
cessary to  guard  against  either  danger  is  to 
discard  all  our  theories  of  the  constitution,  and 
return  and  adhere  to  the  constitution  itself,  as 
it  really  is  and  always  has  been. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  question  of  Sla- 
very had  much  to  do  with  the  rebellion,  but  jt 
was  not  its  sole  cause.  The  real  cause  must  be 
sought  in  the  progress  that  had  been  made, 
especially  in  the  States  themselves,  in  forming 
and  administering  their  respective  govern- 
ments, as  well  as  the  General  government,  in  ac- 
cordance with  political  theories  borrowed  from 
European  speculators  on  government,  the  so- 
called  Liberals  and  Revolutionists,  which  have 
and  can  have  no  legitimate  application  in  the 
United  States.  The  tendency  of  American 
politics,  for  the  last  thirty  or  forty  years,  has 


10  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

been,  within  the  several  States  themselves,  in 
the  direction  of  centralized  democracy,  as  if  the 
American  people  had  for  their  mission  only 
the  reproduction  of  ancient  Athens.  The 
American  system  is  not  that  of  any  of  the  sim- 
ple foims  of  government,  nor  any  combination 
of  them.  The  attempt  to  bring  it  under  any 
of  the  simple  or  mixed  forms  of  government 
recognized  by  political  writers,  is  an  attempt 
to  clothe  the  future  in  the  cast-off  garments,  of 
the  past.  The  American  system,  wherever 
practicable,  is  better  than  monarchy,  better 
than  aristocracy,  better  than  simple  democracy, 
better  than  any  possible  combination  of  these 
several  forms,  because  it  accords  more  nearly 
with  the  principles  of  things,  the  real  order  of 
the  universe. 

But  American  statesmen  have  studied  the 
constitutions  of  other  states  more  than  that  of 
their  own,  and  have  succeeded  in  obscuring  the 
American  system  in  the  minds  of  the  people, 
and  giving  them  in  its  place  pure  and  simple 
democracy,  which  is  its  false  development  or 
corruption.  Under  the  influence  of  this  false 
development,  the  people  were  fast  losing  sight 
of  the  political  truth  that,  though  the  people 
are  sovereign,  it  is  the  organic,  not  the  inorganic 
people,  the  territorial  people,  not  the  people  as 


INTRODUCTION.  *  It 

simple  population,  and  were  beginning  to  assert 
the  absolute  God-given  riglit  of  the  majority  to- 
govern.  All  the  changes  made  in  the  bosom  of 
the  States  themselves  have  consisted  in  remo' 
nng  all  obstacles  to  the  irresponsible  will  of  the- 
majority,  leavin^minorities  and  individuals  at 
their  mercy.  This  tendency  to  a  centralized 
democracy  had  more  to  do  with  provoking^ 
secession  and  rebellion  than  the  anti-slavery 
sentiments  of  the  Northern,  Central,  and  West' 
ern  States. 

The  failure  of  secession  and  the  triumph  of 
the  National  cause,  in  spite  of  the  short-sighted- 
aess  and  blundering  of  the  Administration,  have 
proved  the  vitality  and  strength  of  the  nation- 
al constitution,  and  the  greatness  of  the  Amer- 
ican people.  They  say  nothing  for  or  against 
the  democratic  theory  of  our  demagogues,  but 
dvery  thing  in  favor  of  the  American  system 
or  constitution  of  government,  which  has  found 
d  firmer  support  in  American  instincts  than  in 
American  statesmanship.  In  spite  of  all  that 
had  been  done  by  theorists,  radicals,  and  revo- 
lutionists, no-government  men,  non-resistants,, 
humanitarians,  and  sickly  sentimentalists  ta 
corrupt  the  American  people  in  mind,  heart, 
and  body,  the  native  vigor  of  their  national 
constitution  has  enabled  them  to  come  forth 


12  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

triumphant  from  the  trial  Every  Americau 
patriot  has  reason  to  be  proud  of  his  country 
men,  and  every  American  lover  of  freedom  to 
he  satisfied  with  the  institutions  of  his  country 
But  there  is  danger  that  the  politicians  and 
demagogues  will  ascribe  the-nnerit,  not  to  the 
real  and  living  national  constitution,  but  to 
their  miserable  theories  of  that  constitution, 
^nd  labor  to  aggravate  the  several  evils  and  cor 
rupt  tendencies  which  caused  the  rebellion  it 
has  cost  so  much  to  suppress.  What  is  no"W 
wanted  is,  that  the  people,  whose  instincts  are 
right,  should  understand  the  American  con 
stitution  as  it  is,  and  so  understand  it  as  to  ren 
der  it  impossible  for  political  theorists,  no  mat 
ter  of  what  school  or  party,  to  deceive  them 
again  as  to  its  real  import,  or  induce  them  to 
depart  from  it  in  their  political  action. 

A  work  written  with  temper,  without  pas- 
sion^ or  sectional  prejudice,  in  a  philosophical 
spiiit,  explaining  to  the  American  people  theii 
own  national  constitution,  and  the  mutual  re- 
lations of  the  General  government  and  the 
State  governments,  cannot,  at  this  important 
crisis  in  our  affairs,  be  inopportune,  and,  if  prop- 
erly executed,  can  hardly  fail  to  be  of  reai 
service.  Such  a  work  is  now  attempted — 
would  it  were  by  another  and  abler  hand — 


INTRODUCTION.  IS 

which,  imperfect  as  it  is,  may  at  least  offer 
some  useful  suggestion's,  give  a  right  direction 
to  political  thought,  although  it  should  fail  to 
satisfy  the  mind  of  the  reader. 

This  much  the  author  may  say  in  favor  of 
his  own  work,  that  it  sets  forth  no  •  theory  of 
government  in  general,  oi  of  the  United  States 
in  particular.  The  author  is  not  a  monarchist, 
an  aristocrat,  a  democrat,  a  feudalist,  nor  an 
advocate  of  what  are  called  mixed  governments 
iike  the  English,  at  least  for  his  own  country ; 
but'  is  simply  an  American,  devoted  to  the 
real,  living,  and  energizing  constitution  of  the 
American  republic  as  it  is,  not  as  some  may 
fancy  it  might  be,  or  are  striving  to  make  it. 
It  is,  in  his  judgment,  what  it  ought  to  be,  and 
iie  has  no  other  ambition  than  to  present  it  as 
it  is  to  the  understanding  and  love  of  his  coun- 
taymen. 

Perhaps  simple  artistic  unity  and  pro- 
priety would  require  the  author  to  commence 
his  essay  directly  with  the  United  States  ;  but 
whOe  the  constitution  of  the  United  States  is 
original  and  peculiar,  the  government  of  the 
United  States  has  necessarily  something  in  com- 
mon with  all  legitimate  governments,  and  he 
has  thought  it  best  to  precede  his  discussion  of 
the  American  republic,  its  constitution,  tenden- 


14  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

^ies,  and   destiny,  "by  some  considerations  oi> 
government  in  general.     He  does  this  becaust 
he  believes,  whether  rightly  or  not,  that  whDf 
the  American  people  have  received  from  Prov 
idence  a  most  truly  profound  and  admirablt 
system  of  government,  they  are  more  or  less  in 
fected  with  the  false  theories  of  government 
which  have  been  broached  during  the  last  two 
centuries.     In  attempting  to  realize  these  thee 
ries,  they  have  already  provoked  or  rendere<' 
practicable   a  rebellion   which    has    serioush 
threatened   the  national  existence,   and   com' 
very  near  putting  an  end  to  the  American  orde^ 
of  civilization  itself.     These  theories  have  rv 
ceived  already  a  shock  in  the  minds  of  all  s* 
rious  and  thinking  men;   but   the  men  wh«. 
think  are  in  every  nation  a  small  minority,  am' 
it  is  necessary  to  give  these  theories  a  public 
refutation,  and  bring  back  those  who  do  not 
-think,  as  well  as  those  who  do,  from  the  world 
of  dreams  to  the  world  of  reality.     It  is  hoped 
therefore,  that  any  apparent   want  of  artistic 
unity  or  symmetry  in  the  essay  will  be  pai 
doned  for  the  sake  of  the  end  the  author  haF 
had  in  view. 


GOTERNMENT.  16 


CHAPTER    n. 

G  0  VEBNMENT. 

Man  is  a  dependent  being,  and  neither  doea 
nor  can  suffice  for  liimself.  He  lives  not  in 
himself,  but  lives  and  moves  and  has  his  being 
in  God.  He  exists,  develops,  and  fulfils  his  ex- 
istence only  by  communion,  with  God,  through 
which  he  participates  of  the  divine  being  and 
life.  He  communes  with  God  through  the 
divine  creative  act  and  the  Incarnation  of  the 
Word,  through  his  kind,  and  through  the  mate- 
rial world.  Communion  with  God  through  Crea- 
tion and  Incarnation  is  religion,  distinctively 
taken,  which  binds  man  to  God  as  his  first 
cause,  and  carries  him  onward  to  God  as  his 
final  cause;  communion  through  the  material 
world  is  expressed  by  the  word  property ;  and 
communion  with  God  through  humanity  is  so- 
ciety. Religion,  society,  property,  are  the  three 
terms  that  embrace  the  whole  of  man's  life,  and 
■express  the  essential  means  and  conditions  of 
his  existence,  his  development,  and  his  perfeo 


16  THB  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

tion,  or  the  fulfilment  of  his  existence,  the  attain* 
raent  of  the  end  for  which  he  is  created. 

Though  society,  or  the  communion  of  man  with 
his  Maker  through  his  kind,  is  not  all  that  man 
needs  in  order  to  live,  to  grow,  to  actualize  the 
possibilities  of  his  nature,  and  to  attain  to  his 
beatitude,  since  humanity  is  neither  God  nor  the 
material  universe,  it  is  yet  a  necessary  and  essen- 
tial condition  of  his  life,  his  progress,  and  the 
completion  of  his  existence.  He  is  born  and 
lives  in  society,  and  can  be  born  and  live  no- 
where else.  It  is  one  of  the  necessities  of  his 
nature.  "  God  saw  that  it  was  not  good  for 
man  to  be  alone."  Hence,  wherever  man  is 
found  he  is  found  in  society,  living  in  more  or 
less  strict  intercourse  with  his  kind. 

But  society  never  does  and  never  can  exist 
without  government  of  some  sort.  As  society 
is  a  necessity  of  man's  nature,  so  is  government 
a  necessity  of  society.  The  simplest  form  of 
society  is  the  family — Adam  and  Eve.  But 
though  Adam  and  Eve  are  in  many  respects 
equal,  and  have  equally  important  though  dif- 
ferent parts  assigned  them,  one  or  the  other 
must  be  head  and  governor,  or  they  cannot  form 
the  society  called  family.  They  would  be 
simply  two  individuals  of  different  sexes,  and 
the  family  would  fail  for  the  want  of  unity 


GOVERNMENT.  17 

Children  cannot  be  reared,  trained,  or  educated 
without  some  degree  of  family  government,  of 
some  authority  to  direct,  control,  restrain,  or 
prescribe.  Hence  the  authority  of  the  husband 
and  father  is  recognized  by  the  common  con- 
sent of  mankind.  Still  more  apparent  is  the 
necessity  of  government  the  moment  the  family 
develops  and  grows  into  the  tribe,  and  the  tribe 
into  the  nation.  Hence  no  nation  exists  with- 
out government ;  and  we  never  find  a  savage 
tribe,  however  low  or  degraded,  that  does,  not 
assert  somewhere,  in  the  father,  in  the  elders, 
or  in  the  tribe  itself,  the  rude  outlines  or  the 
faint  reminiscences  of  some  sort  of  govern- 
ment,  with  authority  to  demand  obedience 
and  to  punish  the  refractory.  Hence,  as  man  is 
nowhere  found  out  of  society,  so  nowhere  is  so- 
ciety found  without  government. 

Government  is  necessary:  but  let  it  be  re- 
marked by  the  way,  that  its  necessity  does  not 
grow  exclusively  or  chiefly  out  of  the  fact  that 
the  human  race  by  sin  has  fallen  from  its  prim- 
itive integrity,  or  original  righteousness.  The 
fall  asserted  by  Christian  theology,  though 
often  misinterpreted,  and  its  effects  underrated 
or  exaggerated,  is  a  fact  too  sadly  confirmed 
by  individual  experience  and  universal  history ; 

but  it  is  not  the  cause  why  government  is  neces- 

t 


td  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLin 

sary,  though  it  may  be  an  additional  reason 
for  demanding  it.  Government  would  have 
been  necessary  if  man  had  not  sinned,  and  it  is 
needed  for  the  good  as  well  as  for  the  bad.  The 
law  was  promulgated  in  the  Garden,  while  man 
retained  his  innocence  and  remained  in  the  in- 
tegi'ity  of  his  nature.  It  exists  in  heaven  as 
well  as  on  earth,  and  in  heaven  in  its  perfec- 
tion. Its  oflSce  is  not  purely  repressive,  to  re- 
strain violence,  to  redress  wrongs,  and  to  punish 
the  transgressor.  It  has  something  more  to  do 
than  to  restrict  our  natural  liberty,  curb  our 
passions,  and  maintain  justice  between  man  and 
man.  Its  office  is  positive  as  well  as  negative.  It 
is  needed  to  render  effective  the  solidarity  of  the 
individuals  of  a  nation,  and  to  render  the  nation 
an  organism,  not  a  mere  organization — to  com- 
bine men  in  one  living  body,  and  to  strengthen 
all  with  the  strength  of  each,  and  each  with  the 
strength  of  all — to  develop,  strengthen,  and 
sustain  individual  liberty,  and  to  utilize  and 
direct  it  to  the  promotion  of  the  common  weal 
— to  be  a  social  providence,  imitating  in  its 
order  and  degree  the  action  of  the  divine  prov- 
idence itself,  and,  while  it  provides  for  the 
common  good  of  all,  to  protect  each,  the  lowest 
and  meanest,  with  the  whole  force  and  majesty 
of  society.    It  is  the  minister  of  wrath  to  wi'ong- 


GOVERNMENT.  •  19 

doers,  indeed,  but  its  nature  is  beneficent,  and 
its  action  defines  and  protects  the  right  of  prop- 
erty, creates  and  maintains  a  medium  in  which 
religion  can  exert  her  supernatural  energy,  pro- 
motes learning,  fosters  science  and  art,  advances 
civilization,  and  contributes  as  a  poweiful 
means  to  the  fulfilment  by  man  of  the  Divine 
purpose  in  his  existence.  Next  after  religion, 
it  is  man's  greatest  good ;  and  even  religion 
without  it  can  do  only  a  small  portion  of  her 
work.  They  wrong  it  who  call  it  a  necessary 
evil ;  it  is  a  great  good,  and,  instead  of  being 
distrusted,  hated,  or  resisted,  except  in  its 
abuses,  it  should  be  loved,  respected,  obeyed, 
and,  if  need  be,  defended  at  the  cost  of  all 
earthly  goods,  and  even  of  life  itself 

The  nature  or  essence  of  government  is  to 
govern.  A  government  that  does  not  govern, 
is  simply  no  government  at  all.  K  it  has  not 
the  ability  to  govern  and  governs  not,  it  may 
be  an  agency,  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of 
individuals  for  advancing  their  private  inter- 
ests, but  it  is  not  government.  To  be  govern- 
ment, it  must  govern  both  individuals  and  the 
community.  If  it  is  a  mere  machine  for  making 
prevail  the  will  of  one  man,  of  a  certain  number 
of  men,  or  even  of  the  community,  it  may  be 
very  effectiv^e   sometimes  for  good,  sometimes 


so  THB  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

for  evil,  oftenest  for  e\ril,  but  government  in  the 
proper  sense  of  the  word  it  is  not.  To  govern 
is  to  direct,  control,  restrain,  as  the  pilot  con- 
trols and  directs  his  ship.  It  necessarily  im- 
plies two  terms,  governor  and  governed,  and  a 
real  distinction  between  them.  The  denial  of 
all  real  distinction  between  governor  and  gov- 
erned is  an  error  in  politics  analogous  to  that 
in  philosophy  or  theology  of  denying  all  real 
distinction  between  creator  and  creature,  God 
and  the  universe,  which  all  the  world  knows  is 
either  pantheism  or  pure  atheism — the  supreme 
sophism.  K  we  make  governor  and  governed 
one  and  the  same,  we  efface  both  terms;  for 
there  is  no  governor  nor  governed,  if  the  will 
that  governs  is  identically  the  will  that  is  gov- 
erned. To  make  the  controller  and  the  con- 
trolled the  same,  is  precisely  to  deny  all  controL 
There  must,  then,  if  there  is  government  at  all, 
be  a  power,  force,  or  will  that  governs,  distinct 
from  that  which  is  governed.  In  those  gov- 
ernments in  which  it  is  held  that  the  people 
govern,  the  people  governing  do  and  must  act 
in  a  diverse  relation  from  the  people  governed, 
or  there  is  no  real  government. 

Government  is  not  only  that  which  governs, 
but  that  which  has  the  right  or  authority  to 
govern.     Power  without  right  is  not  govern- 


GOVERNMENT.  21 

ment.  Governments  have  tlie  right  to  use  force 
at  need,  but  might  does  not  make  right,  and 
not  every  power  wielding  the  physical  force  of  a 
nation  is  to  be  regarded  as  its  rightful  govern- 
ment. Whatever  resort  to  physical  force  it  may 
be  obliged  to  make,  either  in  defence  of  its  au- 
thority or  of  the  rights  of  the  nation,  the  govern 
ment  itself  lies  in  the  moral  order,  and  poli- 
tics is  simply  a  branch  of  ethics — that  branch 
which  treats  of  the  rights  and  duties  of  men  in 
their  public  relations,  as  distinguished  from  their 
rights  and  duties  in  their  private  relations. 

Government  being  not  only  that  which  gov- 
erns, but  that  which  has  the  right  to  govern, 
obedience  to  it  becomes  a  moral  duty,  not  a 
mere  physical  necessity.  The  right  to  govern 
and  the  duty  to  obey  are  correlatives,  and  the 
one  cannot  exist  or  be  conceived  without  the 
■other.  Hence  loyalty  is  not  simply  an  amiable 
sentiment,  but  a  duty,  a  moral  virtue.  Treason 
is  not  merely  a  difference  in  political  opinion 
with  the  governing  authority,  but  a  crime 
gainst  the  sovereign,  and  a  moral  wrong,  there- 
fore a  sin  against  God,  the  Founder  of  the 
Moral  Law.  Treason,  if  committed  in  other 
oountries,  unhappily,  has  been  more  frequent- 
ly termed  by  our  countrymen  patriotism  and 
loaded  with  honor  than  branded  as  a  crime,  the 


82  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

greatest  of  crimes,  as  i*  is,  that  human  govern- 
ments have  authority  to  punish.  The  Ameri- 
can people  have  been  chary  of  the  word  loyalty, 
perhaps  because  they  regard  it  as  the  correlative 
of  royalty ;  but  loyalty  is  rather  the  correlative 
of  law,  and  is,  in  its  essence,  love  and  devotion 
to  the  sovereign  authority,  however  constituted 
or  wherever  lodged.  It  is  as  necessary,  as 
much  a  duty,  as  much  a  virtue  in  republics  as 
in  monarchies;  and  nobler  examples  of  the  most 
devoted  loyalty  are  not  found  in  the  world's  his- 
tory than  were  exhibited  in  the  ancient  Greek 
and  Roman  republics,  or  than  have  been  exhib> 
ited  by  both  men  and  women  in  the  young 
republic  of  the  United  States.  Loyalty  is  the 
highest,  noblest,  and  most  generous  of  human 
virtues,  and  is  the  human  element  of  that  sub- 
lime love  or  charity  which  the  inspired  Apostle 
tells  us  is  the  fulfilment  of  the  law.  It  has  in 
it  the  principle  of  devotion,  of  self-saciifice,  and 
is,  of  all  human  virtues,  that  which  renders 
man  the  most  Godlike.  There  is  nothing  great, 
generous,  good,  or  heroic  of  which  a  truly 
loyal  people  are  not  capable,  and  nothing  mean, 
base,  cruel,  brutal,  criminal,  detestable,  not  ta 
be  expected  of  a  really  disloyal  people.  Such 
a  people  no  generous  sentiment  can  move,  no 
love  can  bind.     It  mocks  at  duty,  scorns  vir- 


GOVERNMENT.  28 

tue,  tramples  on  all  rights,  and  holds  no  person, 
no  thing,  human  or  divine,  sacred  or  inviolable. 
The  assertion  of  government  as  lying  in  the 
moral  order,  defines  civil  liberty,  and  recon- 
ciles it  with  authority.  Civil  liberty  is  free- 
dom to  do  whatever  one  pleases  that  authority 
permits  or  does  not  forbid.  Freedom  to  follow 
in  all  things  one's  own  will  or  inclination, 
without  any  civil  restraint,  is  license,  not  lib- 
erty. There  is  no  lesion  to  liberty  in  repress- 
ing license,  nor  in  requiring  obedience  to 
the  commands  of  the  authority  that  has  the 
right  to  command.  Tyranny  or  oppression  is 
not  in  being  subjected  to  authority,  but  in 
being  subjected  to  usurped  authority — to  a 
power  that  has  no  right  to  command,  or  that 
commands  what  exceeds  its  right  or  its  author- 
ity. To  say  that  it  is  contrary  to  liberty  to  be 
forced  to  forego  our  own  will  or  inclination  in 
any  case  whatever,  is  simply  denying  the  right 
of  all  government,  and  falling  into  no-govem- 
mentism.  Liberty  is  violated  only  when  we 
are  required  to  forego  our  own  will  or  inclina- 
tion by  a  power  that  has  no  right  to  make  the 
requisition ;  for  we  are  bound  to  obedience  as 
far  as  authority  has  right  to  govern,  and  we 
can  never  have  the  right  to  disobey  a  rightful 
command.     The  requisition,  if  made  by  right 


24  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBUa 

fill  authoriiy,  then,  violates  no  right  that  we 
have  or  can  have,  and  where  there  is  no  viola- 
tion of  our  rights  there  is  no  violation  of  our 
liberty.  The  moral  right  of  authonty,  which 
involves  the  moral  duty  of  obedience,  presents, 
then,  the  ground  on  which  liberty  and  authority 
may  meet  in  peace  and  operate  to  the  same  end. 
This  has  no  resemblance  to  the  slavish 
doctrine  of  passive  obedience,  and  that  the 
resistance  to  power  can  never  be  lawful.  The 
tyrant  may  be  lawfully  resisted,  for  the  ty- 
rant, by  force  of  the  word  itself,  is  a  usurper, 
and  without  authority.  Abuses  of  power  may 
be  resisted  even  by  force  when  they  become 
too  great  to  be  endured,  when  there  is  no  legal 
or  regular  way  of  redressing  them,  and  when 
there  is  a  reasonable  prospect  that  resistance 
will  prove  effectual  and  substitute  something 
better  in  their  place.  But  it  is  never  lawful 
to  resist  the  rightful  sovereign,  for  it  can 
never  be  right  to  resist  right,  and  the  rightful 
sovereign  in  the  constitutional  exercise  of  his 
power  can  never  be  said  to  abuse  it.  Abuse 
is  the  unconstitutional  or  wrongful  exercise 
of  a  power  rightfully  held,  and  when  it  is  not 
so  exercised  there  is  no  abuse  or  abuses  to 
redress.  All  turns,  then,  on  the  right  of  power, 
or  its  legitimacy.   Whence  does  government  de- 


^'^'•'  ■        OLLK. 


BRARy 


GOVERNMENT.  !35 

rive  its  riglit  to  govern  ?  What  is  the  origin 
and  ground  of  sovereignty  ?  This  question  is 
fundamental,  and  without  a  true  answer  to  it 
politics  cannot  be  a  science,  and  there  can  be  no 
scientific  statesmanship.  Whence,  then,  comes 
the  sovereign  right  to  govern  ? 


•36  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 


CHAPTER  m. 

ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT. 

Government  is  both  a  fact  and  a  right.  Its 
origin  as  a  fact,  is  simply  a  question  of  his- 
tory ;  its  origin  as  a  right  or  authority  to  gov- 
ern, is  a  question  of  ethics.  Whether  a  certain 
territory  and  its  population  are  a  sovereign 
state  or  nation,  or  not. — whether  the  actual 
ruler  of  a  country  is  its  rightful  ruler,  or  not — 
is  to  be  determined  by  the  historical  facts  in 
the  case ;  but  whence  the  government  derives 
its  right  to  govern,  is  a  question  that  can  be 
solved  only  by  philosophy,  or,  philosophy  fail- 
ing, only  by  revelation. 

Political  writers,  not  carefully  distinguishing 
between  the  fact  and  the  right,  have  invented 
various  theories  as  to  the  origin  of  government, 
among  which  may  be  named — 

L  Government  originates  in  the  right  of  the 
father  to  govern  his  child. 

IL  It  originates  in  convention,  and  is  a  social 
compact. 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  2T 

III.  It  originates  in  the  people,  who,  collec- 
tively taken,  are  sovereign. 

IV.,  Government  springs  from  the  spontane* 
ous  development  of  nature. 

V.  It  derives  its  right  from  the  immediate 
and  express  appointment  of  God ; — 

YI.  From  God  through  the  Pope,  or  visible^ 
head  of  the  spiritual  society ; — 

Vn.  From  God  through  the  people  ;— 

Vin.  From  God  through  the  natural  law. 

I.  The  first  theory  is  sound,  if  the  question 
is  confined  to  the  oiigin  of  government  as  a 
fact.  The  patriarchal  system  is  the  earliest 
known  system  of  government,  and  unmistaka- 
ble traces  of  it  are  found  in  nearly  all  known 
governments— ^in  the  tribes  of  Arabia  and 
Northern  Afi-ica,  the  Irish  septs  and  the  Scot- 
tish clans^  the  Tartar  hordes,  the  Roman  genteSy 
and  the  Russian  and  Hindoo  villages.^ThQ 
right  of  the  father  was  held  to  be  his  right  to 
govern  his  family  or  household,  which,  with  his 
children,  included  his  wife  and  servants.  From 
the  family  to  the  tribe  the  transition  is  natural 
and  easy,  as  also  from  the  tribe  to  the  nation. 
The  father  is  chief  of  the  family ;  the  chief  of 
the  eldest  family  is  chief  of  the  tribe ;  the  chief 
of  the  eldest  tribe  becomes  chief  of  the  nation. 


"88  THE  AMERICAN  RKPUBUC. 

and,  as  such,  king  or  monarch.  The  heads  of 
families  collected  in  a  senate  form  an  aristoc- 
racy, and  the  families  themselves,  represented 
by  their  delegates,  or  publicly  assembling  for 
public  affairs,  constitute  a  democracy.  These 
three  forms,  with  theii'  several  combinations, 
to  wit,  monarchy,  aristocracy,  democracy,  and 
mixed  governments,  are  all  the  forms  known  to 
Aristotle,  and  have  generally  been  held  to  be 
all  that  are  possible. 

Historically,  all  governments  have,  in  some 
sense,  been  developed  from  the  patriarchal,  as 
all  society  has  been  developed  from  the  family. 
HEven  those  governments,  like  the  ancient  Roman 
and  the  modem  feudal,  which  seem  to  be 
founded  on  landed  property,  may  be  traced 
back  to  a  patriarchal  origin.  The  patriarch  is 
sole  proprietor,  and  the  possessions  of  the  fam- 
ily are  vested  in  him,  and  he  governs  as  pro- 
prietor as  well  as  father.  In  the*  tribe,  the 
chief  is  the  proprietor,  and  in  the  nation,  the 
king  is  the  landlord,  and  holds  the  domain. 
Hence,  the  feudal  baron  is  invested  with  his 
fief  by  the  suzerain,  holds  it  from  him,  and  to 
him  it  escheats  when  forfeited  or  vacant.  All 
the  great  Asiatic  kings  of  ancient  or  modem 
times  hold  the  domain  and  govern  as  proprie- 
tors ;  they  have  the  authority  of  the  father  and 


ORIGIN  OP  GOVERNMENT.  21^ 

the  owner ;  and  their  subjects,  though  theoreti- 
cally their  children,  are  really  their  slaves. 

In  Rome,  however,  the  proprietary  right  un- 
dergoes an  important  transformation.  The 
father  retains  all  the  power  of  the  patnarch 
within  his  family,  the  patrician  in  his  gens  or 
house,  but,  outside  of  it,  is  met  and  controlled 
by  the  city  or  state.  The  heads  of  houses  are 
united  in  the  senate,  and  collectively  constitute 
and  govern  the  state.  Yet,  not  all  the  heads 
of  houses  have  seats  in  the  senate,  but  only 
the  tenants  of  the  sacred  territory  of  the  city, 
which  has  been  surveyed  and  marked  by  the 
•god  Terminus.  Hence  the  great  plebeian  houses^ 
often  richer  and  nobler  than  the  patrician,  wera 
excluded  from  all  share  in  the  government  and 
the  honors  of  the  state,  because  they  were  not 
tenants  of  any  portion  of  the  sacred  territory. 
There  is  here  the  introduction  of  an  element 
which  is  not  patriarchal,  and  which  transforms 
the  patriarch  or  chief  of  a  tribe  into  the  city  or 
state,  and  founds  the  civil  order,  or  what  is 
now  called  civilization.  The  city  or  state  takes 
the  place  of  the  private  proprietor,  and  territorial 
rights  take  the  place  of  purely  personal  rights. 

In  the  theory  of  the  Roman  law,  the  land 
owns  the  man,  not  the  man  the  land.  When 
land  was  transferred  to  a  new  tenant,  the  prao- 


"80  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

tice  in  eai'ly  times  Avas  to  bury  him  in  it,  in 
•order  to  indicate  that  it  took  possession  of 
him,  received,  accepted,  or  adopted  him;  and 
it  was  only  such  persons  as  were  taken  posses- 
sion of,  accepted  or  aidopted  by  the  sacred  ter- 
ritory or  domain  that,  though  denizens  of  Rome, 
were  citizens  with  full  political  rights.  This, 
in  modern  language,  means  that  the  state  is 
territorial,  not  personal,  and  that  the  citizen  ap- 
pertains to  the  state,  not  the  state  to  the  citi- 
zen. Under  the  patriarchal,  the  tribal,  and  the 
Asiatic  monarchical  systems,  there  is,  properly 
speaking,  no  state,  no  citizens,  and  the  organi- 
zation is  economical  rather  than  political.  Au- 
thority— even  the  nation  itself — ^is  personal,  not 
territorial.  The  patriarch,  the  chief  of  the 
tribe,  or  the  king,  is  the  only  proprietor.  Un- 
der the  Gneco-Roman  system  all  this  is  trans- 
formed. The  nation  is  temtorial  as  well  as 
personal,  and  the  real  proprietor  is  the  city  or 
state.  Under  the  Empire,  no  doubt,  what  law- 
yers call  the  eminent  domain  was  vested  in 
the  emperor,  but  only  as  the  representative 
and  trustee  of  the  city  or  state. 

When  or  by  what  combination  of  events  this 
transformation  was  effected,  history  does  not 
inform  us.  The  first-born  of  Adam,  we  are 
told,  built  a  city,  and  called  it  after  his  son 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  31 

finoch;  but  there  is  no  evidence  that  it  was 
constituted  a  municipality.  The  earliest  traces 
of  the  Givil  order  proper  are  found  in  the  Greek 
and  Italian  republics,  and  its  fullest  and  grand- 
est developments  are  found  in  Rome,  imperial 
as  well  as  republican.  It  was  no  doubt  pre- 
ceded by  the  patriarchal  system,  and  was  his- 
torically developed  from  it,  but  by  way  of 
accretion,  rather  than  by  simple  explication. 
It  has  in  it  an  element  that,  if  it  exists  in  the 
patriarchal  constitution,  exists  there  only  in  a 
different  form,  and  the  transformation  marks 
the  passage  from  the  economical  order  to  the 
political,  from  the  barbaric  to  the  civil  con- 
stitution of  society,  or  from  barbarism  to 
civilization. 

The  word  civilization  stands  opposed  to  bar- 
barism, and  is  derived  from  civitas — city  or 
state.  The  Greeks  and  Eomans  call  all  tribes 
and  nations  in  which  authority  is  vested  in  the 
chief,  as  distinguished  from  the  state,  barbari- 
ans.  The  origin  of  the  word  ha/rba/rian,  bar- 
harus^  or  (3apfiagog,  is  unknown,  and  its  pri- 
mary sense  can  be  only  conjectured.  Webster 
regards  its  primary  sense  as  foreign,  wild, 
fierce ;  but  this  could  not  have  been  its  original 
sense ;  for  the  Greeks  and  Romans  never  termed 
all  foreigners  barbarians, "and  they  applied  the 


33  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIO 

term  to  nations  that  had  no  inconsiderable  cul» 
ture  and  refinement  of  manners,  and  that  had 
made  respectable  progress  in  art  and  science — 
as  the  Indians,  Persians,  Medians,  Chaldeans, 
and  Assyrians.  They  applied  the  term  evident- 
ly in  a  political,  not  an  ethical  or  an  aesthetical 
sense,  and  as  it  would  seem  to  designate  a  social 
order  in  which  the  state  was  not  developed,  and 
in  which  the  nation  was  personal,  not  territo- 
rial, and  authority  was  held  as  a  private  right, 
not  as  a  public  trust,  or  in  which  the  domain. 
vests  in  the  chief  or  tribe,  and  not  in  the  state ; 
for  they  never  term  any  others  barbarians. 

Republic  is  opposed  not  to  monarchy,  in  the 
modem  European  sense,  but  to  monarchy  in 
the  ancient  or  absolute  sense.  Lacedaemon  had 
kings;  yet  it  was  no  less  republican  than 
Athens;  and  Rome  was  called  and  was  a  repub- 
lic under  the  emperors  no  less  than  under  the 
consuls.  Republic,  reepvhlica^  by  the  very  force 
of  the  term,  means  the  public  wealth,  or,  in 
good  English,  the  commonwealth ;  that  is,  gov- 
ernment founded  not  on  personal  or  private 
wealth,  but  on  the  public  wealth,  public  terri- 
tory, or  domain,  or  a  government  that  vests  au- 
thority in  the  nation,  and  attaches  the  nation 
to  a  certain  definite  territory.  France,  Spain, 
Italy,  Holland,  Belgium,  Denmark,  even  Great 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  33 

Britain  in  substance  though  not  in  form,  are 
all,  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word,  republican 
states ;  for  the  king  or  emperor  does  not  gov- 
ern in  his  own  private  right,  but  solely  as  repre- 
sentative of  the  power  and  majesty  of  the  state. 
The  distinctive  mark  of  republicanism  is  the 
substitution  of  the  state  for  the  personal  chief, 
and  public  authority  for  personal  or  private 
right.  Republicanism  is  really  civilization  as 
opposed  to  barbarism,  and  all  civility,  in  the 
old  sense  of  the  word,  or  civilta  in  Italian,  is 
republican,  and  is  applied  in  modern  times  to 
breeding,  or  refinement  of  manners,  simply  be- 
cause these  are  characteristics  of  a  republican, 
or  polished  [from  TroAif,  city]  people.  Every 
people  that  has  a  real  civil  order,  or  a  fully  de- 
veloped state  or  polity,  is  a  republican  people ; 
and  hence  the  church  and  her  great  doctors, 
when  they  speak  of  the  state  as  distinguished 
from  the  church,  call  it  the  r&pvhlic^  as  may  be 
seen  by  consulting  even  a  late  Encyclical  of 
Pius  IX.,  which  some  have  interpreted  wrongly 
in  an  anti-republican  sense. 

All  tribes  and  nations  in  which  the  patriar- 
chal system  remains,  or  is  developed  without 
transformation,  are  barbaric,  and  really  so  re- 
garded by  all  Christendom.  In  civilized  nations 
the  patriarchal  authority  is   transformed  into 


34  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

that  of  the  city  or  state,  that  is,  of  the  republic : 
but  in  all  barbarous  nations  it  retains  its  private 
and  personal  character.  The  nation  is  only  the 
family  or  tribe,  and  is  called  by  the  name  of 
its  ancestor,  founder,  or  chief,  not  by  a  geo- 
graphical denomination.  Race  has  not  been 
supplanted  by  country ;  they  are  a  people,  not 
a  state.  They  are  not  fixed  to  the  soil,  and 
though  we  may  find  in  them  ardent  love  of 
family,  the  tribe,  or  the  chief,  we  never  find 
among  them  that  pure  love  of  country  or  patri- 
otism whfch  so  distinguished  the  Greeks  and 
Romans,  and  is  no  less  marked  among  modern 
Christian  nations.  They  have  a  family,  a  race,  a 
chief  or  king,  but  no  patria^  or  country.  The 
barbarians  who  overthrew  the  Roman  Empire, 
whether  of  the  West  or  the  East,  were  nations, 
or  confederacies  of  nations,  but  not  states.  The 
nation  with  them  was  personal,  not  territoriaL 
Their  country  was  wherever  they  fed  their  flocks 
and  herds,  pitched  their  tents,  and  encamped  for 
the  night.  There  were  Germans,  but  no  German 
state,  and  even  to-day  the  German  finds  his 
"  father-land "  wherever  the  German  speech  is 
spoken.  The  Polish,  Sclavonian,  Hungarian, 
Illyrian,  Italian,  and  other  provinces  held  by 
German  states,  in  which  the  German  language 
is   not  the  mother-tongue,  are  excluded   from 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  35 

the  Germanic  Confederation.  The  Turks,  or 
Osmanlis,  are  a  race,  not  a  state,  and  are 
encamped,  not  settled,  on  the  site  of  the  Eastern 
Roman  or  Greek  Empire. 

Even  when  the  barbaric  nations  have  ceased 
to  be  nomadic,  pastoral,  or  predatory  nations, 
as  the  ancient  Assyrians  and  Persians  or  modern 
Chinese,  and  have  their  geographical  boun- 
daries, they  have  still  no  state,  no  country. 
The  nation  defines  the  boundaries,  not  the 
boundaries  the  nation.  The  nation  does  not 
belong  to  the  territory,  but  the  territory  to  the 
nation  or  its  chief.  The  Irish  and  Anglo-Saxons, 
in  former  times,  held  the  land  in  gavelkind, 
and  the  territory  belonged  to  the  tribe  or  sept ; 
but  if  the  tribe  held  it  as  indivisible,  they  still 
held  it  as  private  property.  The  shah  of 
Persia  holds  the  whole  Persian  territory  as 
private  property,  and  the  landholders  among 
his  subjects  are  held  to  be  his  tenants.  They 
hold  it  from  him,  not  from  the  Persian  state. 
The  public  domain  of  the  Greek  empire  is  in 
theory  the  private  domain  of  the  Ottoman 
emperor  or  Turkish  sultan.  There  is  in  bar 
baric  states  no  republic,  no  commonwealtl  , 
authority  is  parental,  without  being  tempered 
by  parental  affection.  The  chief  is  a  despot, 
and  rules  with  the  unlimited  authority  of  the 


36  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

father  and  the  harshness  of  the  proprietor 
He  owns  the  land  and  his  subjects. 

Feudalism,  established  in  Western  Europe 
after  the  downfall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  how- 
ever modified  by  the  Church  and  by  reminis- 
cences of  GrsBco-E-oman  civilization  retained  by 
the  conquered,  was  a  barbaric  constitution. 
The  feudal  monarch,  as  far  as  he  governed  at 
all,  governed  as  proprietor  or  landholder,  not 
as  the  representative  of  the  commonwealth. 
Under  feudalism  there  are  estates,  but  no  stata 
The  king  governs  as  an  estate,  the  nobles  hold 
their  power  as  an  estate,  and  the  commons  are 
represented  as  an  estate.  The  whole  theory  of 
power  is,  that  it  is  an  estate;  a  private  right, 
not  a  public  trust.  It  is  not  without  reason, 
then,  that  the  common  sense  of  civilized  nations 
terms  the  ages  when  it  prevailed  in  Western 
Europe  barbarous  ages. 

It  may  seem  a  paradox  to  class  democracy 
with  the  barbaric  constitutions,  and  yet  as  it  is 
defended  by  many  stanch  democrats,  especially 
European  democrats  and  revolutionists,  and  by 
French  and  Germans  settled  in  our  own  coun- 
try, it  is  essentially  barbaric  and  anti-republican. 
The  characteristic  principle  of  barbarism  is, 
that  power  is  a  private  or  personal  right,  and 
when  democrats  assert  that  the  elective  fran- 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  37 

chise  is  a  natural  riglit  of  man,  or  that  it  is 
held  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  the  elector  is  a 
man,  they  assert  the  fundamental  principle  of 
barbarism  and  despotism.  This  says  nothing 
in  favor  of  restricted  suffrage,  or  against  what 
is  called  universal  suffrage.  To  restrict  suf- 
frage to  property-holders  helps  nothing,  theoreti- 
cally or  practically.  Property  has  of  itself 
advantages  enough,  without  clothing  its  holders 
with  exclusive  political  rights  and  privileges, 
and  the  laboring  classes  any  day  ai'e  as  trust- 
worthy as  the  business  classes.  The  wise 
statesman  will  never  restrict  suffrage,  or  exclude 
the  poorer  and  more  numerous  classes  from  all 
voice  in  the  government  of  their  country. 
General  suffrage  is  wise,  and  if  Louis  Philippe 
had  had  the  sense  to  adopt  it,  and  thus  rally 
the  whole  nation  to  the  support  of  his  govern- 
ment, he  would  never  have  had  to  encounter 
the  revolution  of  1848.  The  barbarism,  the 
despotism,  is  not  in  universal  suffrage,  but  in 
■defending  the  elective  franchise  as  a  private  or 
personal  right.  It  is  not  a  private,  but  a  politi- 
cal right,  and,  like  all  political  rights,  a  public 
trust.  Extremes  meet,  and  thus  it  is  that  men 
who  imagine  that  they  march  at  the  head  of 
the  human  race  and  lead  the  civilization  of  the 
nge,  are  really  in  principle  retrograding  to  the 


38  THE  AMERICAli  REPUBLIC. 

barbarism  of  the  past,  or  taking  theii  plat* 
with  nations  on  whom  the  light  of  civilization 
has  never  yet  dawned.  All  is  not  gold  that 
glisters. 

The  characteristic  of  barbarism  is,  that  it 
makes  all  authority  a  private  or  personal  right ; 
and  the  characteristic  of  civilization  is,  that  it 
makes  it  a  public  trust.  Barbarism  knows 
only  persons;  civilization  asserts  and  maintains 
the  state.  "With  barbarians  the  authority  of 
the  patriarch  is  developed  simply  by  way  of 
explication;  in  civilized  states  it  is  developed 
by  way  of  transformation.  Keeping  in  mind 
this  distinction,  it  may  be  maintained  that  all 
systems  of  government,  as  a  simple  historical 
fact,  have  been  developed  from  the  patriarchal. 
The  patriarchal  has  preceded  them  all,  and  it  is 
with  the  patriarchal  that  the  human  race  has 
begun  its  career.  The  family  or  household  is 
not  a  state,  a  civil  polity,  but  it  is  a  govern- 
ment, and,  historically  considered,  is  the  initial 
or  inchoate  state  as  well  as  the  initial  or 
inchoate  nation.  But  its  simple  direct  develop- 
ment gives  us  barbarism,  or  what  is  called 
Oriental  despotism,  and  which  nowhere  exists,  or 
can  exist,  in  Christendom.  It  is  found  only  in 
pagan  and  Mohammedan  nations;  Christianity 
in  the  secular  order  is  republican,  and  continues 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  39 

and  completes  the  work  of  Greece  and  Rome. 
It  meets  witli  little  permanent  success  in  any 
patriarclial  or  despotic  nation,  and  must  either 
find  or  create  civilization,  which  has  been  de- 
veloped from  the  patriarchal  system  by  way  of 
transformation. 

But,  though  the  patriarchal  system  is  the 
earliest  form  of  government,  and  all  govern- 
ments have  been  developed  or  modified  from 
it,  the  right  of  government  to  govern  cannot 
be  deduced  from  the  right  of  the  father  to 
govern  his  children,  for  the  parental  right  itself 
is  not  ultimate  or  complete.  All  governments 
that  assume  it  to  be  so,  and  rest  on  it  as  the 
foundation  of  their  authority,  are  barbaric  or 
despotic,  and,  therefore,  without  any  legitimate 
authority.  The  right  to  govern  rests  on  owner- 
ship or  dominion.  Where  there  is  no  proprie- 
torship, there  is  no  dominion ;  and  where  there 
is  no  dominion,  there  is  no  right  to  govern. 
Only  he  who  is  sovereign  proprietor  is  sovereign 
lord. 

Property,  ownership,  dominion  rests  on  crea- 
tion. The  maker  has  the  right  to  the  thing 
made.  He,  so  far  as  he  is  sole  creator,  is  sole 
proprietor,  and  may  do  what  he  will  with  it 
God  is  sovereign  lord  and  proprietor  of  the 
universe,  because  He  is  its  sole  creator.     He 


40  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

hath  the  absolute  dominion,  because  He  is  abso- 
lute maker.  He  has  made  it,  He  owns  it ;  and 
one  may  do  what  he  will  with  his  own.  His 
dominion  is  absolute,  because  He  is  absolute 
creator,  and  He  rightly  governs  as  absolute  and 
universal  lord;  yet  is  He  no  despot,  because 
He  exercises  only  His  sovereign  right,  and  His 
own  essential  wisdom,  goodness,  justness,  recti- 
tude, and  immutability,  are  the  highest  of  aU 
conceivable  guaranties  that  His  exercise  of  His 
power  will  always  be  right,  wise,  jusf,  and 
good.  The  despot  is  a  man  attempting  to 
be  God  upon  earth,  and  to  exercise  a  usurped 
power.  Despotism  is  based  on  the  parental 
right,  and  the  parental  right  is  assumed  to  be 
absolute.  Hence,  your  despotic  rulers  claim  to 
reign,  and  to  be  loved  and  worshipped  as  gods. 
Even  the  Roman  emperors,  in  the  fourth  and 
fifth  centuries,  were  addressed  as  divinities ; 
and  Theodosius  the  Great,  a  Christian,  was 
addressed  as  "Your  Eternity,"  Eternitcbs  vea- 
tras — so  far  did  barbarism  encroach  on  civil- 
ization, even  under  Christian  emperors. 

The  right  of  the  father  over  his  child  is 
an  imperfect  right,  for  he  is  the  generator, 
not  the  creator  of  his  child.  Generation  is  in 
the  order  of  second  causes,  and  is  simply  the 
development  or  explication  of  the  race.    The 


ORIGIN  OF  GOTERNMENT.  41 

•early  Roman  law,  founded  on  the  confusion  of 
generation  with  creation,  gave  the  father  abso- 
lute authority  over  the  child — the  right  of  life 
and  death,  as  over  his  servants  or  slaves ;  but 
this  was  restricted  under  the  Empire,  and  in 
all  Christian  nations  the  authority  of  the  father 
is  treated,  like  all  power,  as  a  trust.  The  child, 
like  the  father  himself,  belongs  to  the  state, 
and  to  the  state  the  father  is  answerable  for 
the  use  he  makes  of  his  authority.  The  law 
fixes  flhe  age  of  majority,  when  the  child  is 
completely  emancipated;  and  even  during  his 
nonage,  takes  him  from  the  father  and  places 
him  under  guardians,  in  case  the  father  is  in- 
competent to  fulfil  or  grossly  abuses  his  trust. 
This  is  proper,  because  society  contributes  to 
the  life  of  the  child,  and  has  a  right  as  well  as 
an  interest  in  him.  Society,  again,  must  suffer 
if  the  child  is  allowed  to  grow  up  a  worthless 
vagabond  or  a  criminal ;  and  has  a  right  to  in- 
tervene, both  in  behalf  of  itself  and  of  the 
child,  in  case  his  parents  neglect  to  train  him 
tip  in  the  nurture  and  admonition  of  the  Lord, 
or  are  training  him  up  to  be  a  liar,  a  thief,  a 
drunkard,  a  murderer,  a  pest  to  the  community. 
How,  then,  base  the  right  of  society  on  the 
right  of  the  father,  since,  in  point  of  fact,  the 


42  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

right  of  society  is  paramount  to  the  right  of  the 
parent  ? 

But  even  waiving  this,  and  granting  what  is 
not  the  fact,  that  the  authority  of  the  father  is 
absolute,  unlimited,  it  cannot  be  the  ground 
of  the  right  of  society  to  govern.  Assume  the 
parental  right  to  be  perfect  and  inseparable 
from  the  parental  relation,  it  is  no  right  to 
govern  where  no  such  relation  exists.  Nothing 
true,  real,  solid  in  government  can  be  founded 
on  what  Carlyle  calls  a  "  sham."  The  statesman, 
if  worthy  of  the  name,  ascertains  and  con- 
forms to  the  realities,  the  verities  of  things; 
and  all  jurisprudence  that  accepts  legal  fictions 
is  imperfect,  and  even  censurable.  The  presump- 
tions or  assumptions  of  law  or  politics  must 
have  a  real  and  solid  basis,  or  they  are  inad- 
missible. How,  from  the  right  of  the  father  to 
govern  his  own  child,  bom  fi*om  his  loins,  con- 
clude his  right  to  govern  one  not  his  child? 
Or  how,  from  my  right  to  govern  my  child, 
conclude  the  right  of  society  to  found  the  state, 
institute  government,  and  exercise  political  au- 
thority over  its  members  ? 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  4{> 


CHAPTER    IV. 

ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT— Qo^nsMviD. 

n.  Rejecting  the  patriarchal  theory  as  un- 
tenable, and  shrinking  from  asserting  the  divine 
origin  of  government,  lest  they  should  favor 
theocracy,  and  place  secular  society  under  the 
control  of  the  clergy,  and  thus  disfranchise  the 
laity,  modern  political  writers  have  sought  ta 
render  government  purely  human,  and  main- 
tain that  its  origin  is  conventional,  and  that 
it  is  founded  in  compact  or  agreement.  Their 
theory  originated  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
and  was  predominant  in  the  last  century  and 
the  first  third  of  the  present.  It  has  been,  and 
perhaps  is  yet,  generally  accepted  by  American 
politicians  and  statesmen,  at  least  so  far  as  they 
ever  trouble  theii*  heads  with  the  question  at 
all,  which  it  must  be  confessed  is  not  far. 
•^  The  moral  theologians  of  the  Church  have 
generally  spoken  of  government  as  a  social  pact 
or  compact,  and  explained  the  reciprocal  rights 
and  obligations  of  subjects  and  rulers  by  the 


44  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC 

general  law  of  contracts ;  but  they  have  never 
held  that  government  originates  in  a  voluntary- 
agreement  between  the  people  and  their  rulers, 
or  between  the  several  individuals  composing 
the  community.  They  have  never  held  that 
government  has  only  a  conventional  origin  or 
authority.  They  have  simply  meant,  by  the 
social  compact,"  the  mutual  relations  and  recip- 
rocal rights  and  duties  of  princes  and  their 
subjects,  as  implied  in  the  very  existence  and 
nature  of  civil  society.  Where  there  are  rights 
and  duties  on  each  side,  they  treat  the  fact,  not 
as  an  agreement  voluntarily  entered  into,  and 
which  creates  them,  but  as  a  compact  which 
binds  alike  sovereign  and  subject ;  and  in  de- 
termining whether  either  side  has  sinned  or 
not,  they  inquire  whether  either  has  broken 
the  terms  of  the  social  compact.  They  were 
engaged,  not  with  the  question  whence  does 
government  derive  its  authority,  but  with  its 
nature,  and  the  reciprocal  rights  and  duties  of 
govemoi's  and  the  governed.  The  compact  it- 
self they  held  was  not  voluntarily  formed  by 
the  people  themselves,  either  individually  or 
collectively,  but  was  imposed  by  God,  either 
immediatelv,  or  mediately,  through  the  law  of 
nature.  "  Every  man,"  says  Cicero,  "  is  bom  in 
society,  and  remains  there."    They  held  the 


ORIGIN  OP  GOVERNMENT.  4il> 

same,  and  maintained  that  every  one  born  into 
society  contracts  by  that  fact  certain  obligations 
to  society,  and  society  certain  obligations  to 
him ;  for  under  the  natural  law,  every  one  has 
certain  rights,  as  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit 
of  happiness,  and  owes  certain  duties  to  society 
for  the  protection  and  assistance  it  affords  him. 
But  modern  political  theorists  have  abused 
the  phrase  borrowed  from  the  theologians,  and 
made  it  cover  a  political  doctrine  which  they 
would  have  been  the  last  to  accept.  These 
theorists  or  political  speculators  have  imagined 
a  state  of  nature  antecedently  to  civil  society, 
in  which  men  lived  without  government,  law,^ 
or  manners,  out  of  which  they  finally  came  by 
entering  into  a  voluntary  agreement  with  some 
one  of  their  number  to  be  king  and  to  govern 
them,  or  with  one  another  to  submit  to  the  rule 
of  the  majority.  Hobbes,  the  English  material- 
ist, is  among  the  earliest  and  most  distinguished 
of  the  advocates  of  this  theory.  He  held  that 
men  lived,  prior  to  the  creation  of  civil  society, 
in  a  state  of  nature,  in  which  all  were  equal, 
and  eveiy  one  had  an  equal  right  to  every 
thing,  and  to  take  any  thing  on  which  he  could 
lay  his  hands  and  was  strong  enough  to  hold. 
There  was  no  law  but  the  will  of  the  strongest. 
Hence,  the  state  of  nature  was  a  state  of  con- 


•46  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

tinual  war.  At  length,  wearied  and  disgusted, 
men  sighed  for  peace,  and,  with  one  accord, 
said  to  the  tallest,  bravest,  or  ablest  among 
them :  Come,  be  our  king,  our  master,  our  sov- 
ereign lord,  and  govern  us ;  we  surrender  our 
natural  rights  and  our  natural  independence  to 
you,  with  no  other  reserve  or  condition  than 
that  you  maintain  peace  among  us,  keep  us 
from  robbing  and  plundering  one  another  or 
cutting  each  other's  throats. 

Locke  followed  Hobbes,  and  asserted  virtually 
the  same  theory,  but  asserted  it  in  the  interests 
of  liberty,  as  Hobbes  had  asserted  it  in  the  inter- 
ests of  power.  Rousseau,  a  citizen  of  Geneva, 
followed  in  the  next  century  with  }i\^Con.trat  So- 
cial, the  text-book  of  the  French  revolutionists — 
-almost  their  Bible — and  put  the  finishing  stroke 
to  the  theory.  Hitherto  the  compact  or  agree- 
ment had  been  assumed  to  be  between  the  gov- 
ernor and  the  governed ;  Rousseau  supposes  it  to 
be  between  the  people  themselves,  or  a  compact 
to  which  the  people  are  the  only  parties.  He 
adopts  the  theory  of  a  state  of  nature  in  which 
men  lived,  antecedently  to  their  forming  them- 
selves into  civil  society,  without  government  or 
law.  All  men  in  that  state  were  equal,  and 
«ach  was  independent  and  sovereign  proprietor 
of  himself     These  equ al,  independent,  sovereign 


OEIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT  47 

individuals  met,  or  are  held  to  have  met,  in 
convention,  and  entered  into  a  compact  with 
themselves,  each  with  all,  and  all  with  each, 
that  they  would  constitute  government,  and 
would  each  submit  to  the  determination  and 
authority  of  the  whole,  practically  of  the  fluctu- 
ating and  iiTcsponsible  majority.  Civil  society, 
the  state,  the  government,  originates  in  this 
compact,  and  the  government,  as  Mr.  Jefferson 
asserts  in  the  Declaration  of  American  Inde- 
pendence, "derives  its  just  powers  from  the 
consent  of  the  governed." 

This  theory,  as  so  set  forth,  or  as  modified  by 
-asserting  that  the  individual  delegates  instead 
of  surrendering  his  rights  to  civil  society,  was 
generally  adopted  by  the  American  people  in 
the  last  century,  and  is  still  the  more  prevalent 
theory  with  those  among  them  who  happen  to 
have  any  theory  or  opinion  on  the  subject.  It 
is  the  political  tradition  of  the  country.  The 
state,  as  defined  by  the  elder  Adams,  is  held  to 
be  a  voluntary  association  of  individuals.  In- 
dividuals create  civil  society,  and  may  uncreate 
it  whenever  they  judge  it  advisable.  Prior  to 
the  Southern  Rebellion,  nearly  every  American 
asserted  with  Lafayette,  "  the  sacred  right  of 
insurrection "  or  revolution,  and  sympathized 
with  insurrectionists,  rebels,  and  revolutionists, 


48  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

wherever  they  made  their  appearance.  Loyalty 
was  held  to  be  the  coirelative  of  royalty,  treason 
was  regarded  as  a  virtue,  and  traitors  were 
honored,  feasted,  and  eulogized  as  patriots,  ar- 
dent lovers  of  libei-ty,  and  champions  of  the 
people.  The  fearful  struggle  of  the  nation 
against  a  rebellion  which  threatened  its  very 
existence  may  have  changed  this. 

That  there  is,  or  ever  was,  a  state  of  nature 
such  as  the  theory  assumes,  may  be  questioned. 
Certainly  nothing  proves  that  it  is,  or  ever  was, 
a  real  state.  That  there  is  a  law  of  nature  is 
undeniable.  All  authorities  in  philosophy, 
morals,  politics,  and  jurisprudence  assert  it;  the 
state  assumes  it  as  its  own  immediate  basis,  and 
the  codes  of  all  nations  are  founded  on  it ;  uni- 
versal jurisprudence,  fhe  jii^  gentium  of  the  Ro- 
mans, embodies  it,  and  the  courts  recognize 
and  administer  it.  It  is  the  reason  and  con- 
science of  civil  society,  atfd  every  state  acknowl- 
edges its  authority.  But  the  law  of  nature  is 
as  much  in  force  in  civil  society  as  out  of  it 
Civil  law  does  not  abrogate  or  supersede  nat- 
ural law,  but  presupposes  it,  and  supports  it- 
self on  it  as  its  own  ground  and  reason.  As 
the  natural  law,  which  is  only  natural  justice 
and  equity  dictated  by  the  reason  common  ta 
all  men,  persists  in  the  civil  law,  municipal  or 


ORIGIN  OP  GOVERNMENT.  49 

iuternational,  as  its  informing  soul,  so  does  the 
state  of  nature  persist  in  the  civil  state,  natural 
society  in  civil  society,  which  simply  develops, 
applies,  and  protects  it.  Man  in  civil  society 
is  not  out  of  nature,  but  is  in  it — is  in  his  most 
natural  state ;  for  society  is  natural  to  him,  and 
government  is  natural  to  society,  and  in  some 
form  inseparable  from  it.  The  state  of  nature 
under  the  natural  law  is  not,  as  a  separate  state, 
an  actual  state,  and  never  was;  but  an  ab- 
straction, in  which  is  considered,  apart  from  the 
concrete  existence  called  society,  what  is  de- 
rived immediately  from  the  natural  law.  But 
as  abstractions  have  no  existence  out  of  the 
mind  that  forms  them,  the  state  of  nature  has 
no  actual  existence  in  the  world  of  reality  as  a 
separate  state. 

But  suppose  with  the  theory  the  state  of  nar 
ture  to  have  been  a  real  and  separate  state,  in 
which  men  at  first  lived,  there  is  great  difficulty 
in  understanding  how  they  ever  got  out  of  it. 
Can  a  man  divest  himself  of  his  nature,  or  lift 
himself  above  it  ?  Man  is  in  his  nature,  and 
inseparable  from  it.  If  his  primitive  state  was 
his  natural  state,  and  if  the  political  state  is 
supernatural,  preternatural,  or  subnatural,  how 
passed  he  alone,  by  his  own  unaided  powers, 
from  the  former  to  the  latter?*    The  ancients, 

4, 


.  CO  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

who  had  lost  the  primitive  tradition  of  crea- 
tion, asserted,  indeed,  the  primitive  man  as 
springing  from  the  earth,  and  leading  a  mere 
animal  life,  living  in  caves  or  hoUovr  trees,  and 
feeding  on  roots  and  nuts,  without  speech,  with- 
out science,  art,  law,  or  sense  of  right  and 
wrong ;  but  prior  to  the  prevalence  of  the  Epi- 
curean philosophy,  they  never  pretended  that 
man  could  come  out  of  that  state  alone  by  his 
own  unaided  efforts.  They  ascribed  the  inven- 
tion of  language,  art,  and  science,  the  institution 
of  civil  society,  government,  and  laws,  to  the  in- 
tervention of  the  gods.  It  remained  for  the 
Epicureans — who,  though  unable,  like  their 
modem  successors,  the  Positivists  or  Develop- 
mentists,  to  believe  in  a  first  cause,  believed  in 
effects  without  causes,  or  that  things  make  or 
take  care  of  themselves — to  assert  that  men 
could,  by  their  own  unassisted  efforts,  or  by 
the  simple  exercise  of  reason,  come  out  of  the 
primitive  state,  and  institute  what  in  modem 
times  is  called  civUta,  civility,  or  civilization. 

The  partisans  of  this  theory  of  the  state  of 
nature  from  which  men  have  emerged  by  the 
voluntary  and  deliberate  formation  of  civil  so- 
ciet}^,  forget  that  if  government  is  not  the  sole 
condition,  it  is  one  of  the  essential  conditions 
of  progress.    The  only  progressive  nations  are 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  61 

civilized  or  republican  nations.  Savage  and 
barbarous  tribes  are  unprogressive.  Ages  on 
ages  roll  over  them  without  changing  any 
thing  in  their  state ;  and  Niebuhr  has  well  re- 
marked with  others,  that  history  records  no  in- 
stance of  a  savage  tribe  or  people  having  be- 
come civilized  by  its  own  spontaneous  or  in- 
digenous eiforts.  If  savage  tribes  have  ever 
become  civilized,  it  has  been  by  influences  from 
abroad,  by  the  aid  of  men  already  civilized, 
through  conquest,  colonies,  or  missionaries; 
never  by  their  own  indigenous  efforts,  nor  even 
by  commerce,  as  is  so  confidently  asserted  in 
this  mercantile  age.  Nothing  in  all  history  in- 
dicates the  ability  of  a  savage  people  to  pass  of 
itself  from  the  savage  state  to  the  civilized. 
But  the  primitive  man,  as  described  by  Horace 
in  his  Satires^  and  rasserted  by  Hobbes,  Locke, 
Rousseau,  and  others,  is  far  below  the  savage. 
The  lowest,  most  degraded,  and  most  debased 
savage  tribe  that  has  yet  been  discovered  has  at 
least  some  rude  outlines  or  feeble  reminiscences 
of  a  social  state,  of  government,  morals,  law,  and 
religion,  for  even  in  superstition  the  most  gross 
there  is  a  reminiscence  of  true  religion ;  but  the 
people  in  the  alleged  state  of  nature  have  none. 
The  advocates  of  the  theory  deceive  them- 
selves  by   transporting   into  their  imaginary 


53  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

state  of  nature  the  views,  habits,  and  capacities 
of  the  civilized  man.  It  is,  perhaps,  not  diffi- 
cult for  men  who  have  been  civilized,  who  have 
the  intelligence,  the  arts,  the  affections,  and  the 
habits  of  civilization,  if  deprived  by  some  great 
social  convulsion  of  society,  and  thrown  back 
on  the  so-called  state  of  nature,  or  cast  away  on 
some  uninhabited  island  in  the  ocean,  and  cut 
off  from  all  intercourse  with  the  rest  of  man- 
kind, to  reconstruct  civil  society,  and  re-estab- 
lish and  maintain  civil  government.  They  are 
civilized  men,  and  bear  civil  society  in  their 
own  life.  But  these  are  no  representatives  of 
the  primitive  man  in  the  alleged  state  of  na- 
ture. These  primitive  men  have  no  experi- 
ence, no  knowledge,  no  conception  even  of  civil- 
ized life,  or  of  any  state  superior  to  that  in 
which  they  have  thus  fa*  lived.  How  then 
can  they,  since,  on  the  theory,  civil  society  has 
no  root  in  nature,  but  is  a  purely  artificial  crea- 
tion, even  conceive  of  civilization,  much  less 
realize  it  ? 

These  theorists,  as  theorists  always  do,  fail  to 
make  a  complete  abstraction  of  the  civilized 
state,  and  conclude  from  what  they  feel  they 
could  do  in  case  civil  society  were  broken  up, 
what  men  may  do  and  have  done  in  a  state 
of  nature.     Men  cannot  divest  themselves  of 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  53 

themselves,  and,  whatever  their  efforts  to  do 
it,  they  think,  reason,  and  act  as  they  are. 
Every  writer,  whatever  else  he  writes,  writes 
himself.  The  advocates  of  the  theory,  to  have 
made  their  abstraction  complete,  should  have 
presented  their  primitive  man  as  below  the 
lowest  known  savage,  unprogressive,  and  in 
himself  incapable  of  developing  any  progressive 
energy.  Unprogressive,  and,  without  foreign  as- 
sistance, incapable  of  progress,  how  is  it  possible 
for  your  primitive  man  to  pass,  by  his  own  un- 
assisted eiforts,  from  the  alleged  state  of  nature 
to  that  of  civilization,  of  which  he  has  no  con- 
ception, and  towards  which  no  innate  desire,  no 
instinct,  no  divine  inspiration  pushes  him  ? 

But  even  if,  by  some  happy  inspiration, 
hardly  supposable  without  supernatural  inter- 
vention repudiated  by  the  theory — if  by  some 
happy  inspiration,  a  rare  individual  should  so  far 
rise  above  the  state  of  nature  as  to  conceive  of 
civil  society  and  of  civil  government,  how  could 
he  carry  his  conception  into  execution  ?  Con- 
<jeption  is  always  easier  than  its  realization,  and 
between  the  design  and  its  execution  there  is 
always  a  weary  distance.  The  poetry  of  all 
nations  is  a  wail  over  unrealized  ideals.  It  is 
little  that  even  the  wisest  and  most  potent 
statesman  can  realize  of  what  he  conceives  to 


54  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

be  necessary  for  the  state :  political,  legislative^ 
or  judicial  reforms,  even  when  loudly  demand- 
ed, and  favored  by  authority,  are  hard  to  be 
effected,  and  not  seldom  generations  come  and 
go  without  effecting  them.  The  republics  of 
Plato,  Sir  Thomas  More,  Campanella,  Harring- 
ton, as  the  communities  of  Robert  Owen  and 
M.  Cabet,  remain  Utopias,  not  solely  because 
intrinsically  absurd,  though  so  in  fact,  but 
chiefly  because  they  are  innovations,  have  no- 
support  in  experience,  and  require  for  their 
realization  the  modes  of  thought,  habits,  man- 
ners, character,  life,  which  only  their  introduc- 
tion  and  realization  can  supply.  So  to  be  able 
to  execute  the  design  of  passing  from  the  sup- 
posed state  of  nature  to  civilization,  the  re- 
former would  need  the  intelligence,  the  habits^ 
and  characters  in  the  public  which  are  not  pos- 
sible without  civilization  itself.  Some  philoso- 
phers suppose  men  have  invented  language, 
forgetting  that  it  requires  language  to  give  the 
ability  to  invent  language. 

Men  are  little  moved  by  mere  reasoning,  how- 
ever clear  and  convincing  it  may  be.  They  are 
moved  by  their  affections,  passions,  instincts,. 
and  habits.  Routine  is  more  powerful  with 
them  than  logic.  A  few  are  greedy  of  novel- 
ties,  and  are  always  for  trying  experiments; 


ORIGIN  OP  GOVERNMENT.  66 

but  the  great  body  of  the  people  of  all  nations 
have  an  invincible  repugnance  to  abandon  what 
they  know  for  what  they  know  not.  They  are, 
to  a  great  extent,  the  slaves  of  their  own  vis 
inertise,  and  will  not  make  the  necessary  ex- 
ertion to  change  their  existing  mode  of  life, 
even  for  a  better.  Interest  itself  is  power- 
less before  their  indolence,  prejudice,  habits,  and 
usages.  Never  were  philosophers  more  igno- 
rant of  human  nature  than  they,  so  numerous 
in  the  last  century,  who  imagined  that  men  can 
be  always  moved  by  a  sense  of  interest,  and 
that  enlightened  self-interest,  Vinteret  hien  en- 
tendu^  suffices  to  found  and  sustain  the  state. 
No  reform,  no  change  in  the  constitution  of 
government  or  of  society,  whatever  the  advan- 
tages it  may  promise,  can  be  successful,  if  in- 
troduced, unless  it  has  its  root  or  germ  in  the  past. 
Man  is  never  a  creator ;  he  can  only  develop 
and  continue,  because  he  is  himself  a  creature, 
and  only  a  second  cause.  The  children  of  Israel, 
when  they  encountered  the  privations  of  the 
wilderness  that  lay  between  them  and  the  prom- 
ised land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey,  fainted 
in  spirit,  and  begged  Moses  to  lead  them  back 
to  Egypt,  and  peimit  them  to  return  to  slavery. 
In  the  alleged  state  of  nature,  as  the  phi- 
losophers describe  it,  there  is  no  germ  of  civ- 


66  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

ilization,  and  the  transition  to  civil  society 
would  not  be  a  development,  but  a  complete 
rupture  with  the  past,  and  an  entire  new  crea- 
tion. When  it  is  with  the  greatest  difficulty 
that  necessary  reforms  are  introduced  in  old  and 
highly  civilized  nations,  and  when  it  can  seldom 
be  done  at  all  without  terrible  political  and 
social  convulsions,  how  can  we  suppose  men 
without  society,  and  knowing  nothing  of  it,  can 
deliberately,  and,  as  it  were,  with  "  malice  afore- 
thought," found  society  ?  Without  government, 
and  destitute  alike  of  habits  of  obedience  and 
habits  of  command,  how  can  they  initiate,  es- 
tablish, and  sustain  government  ?  To  suppose 
it,  would  be  to  suppose  that  men  in  a  state  of 
nature,  without  culture,  without  science,  with- 
out any  of  the  arts,  even  the  most  simple  and 
necessary,  are  infinitely  superior  to  the  men 
foimed  under  the  most  advanced  civilization. 
Was  Rousseau  right  in  asserting  civilization  as 
a  fall,  as  a  deterioration  of  the  race  ? 

But  suppose  the  state  of  nature,  even  suppose 
that  men,  by  some  miracle  or  other,  can  get 
out  of  it  and  found  civil  society,  the  origin 
of  government  as  authority  in  compact  is  not 
yet  established.  According  to  the  theory,  the 
rights  of  civil  society  are  derived  from  the 
rights  of  the  individuals  who  form  or  enter  into 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  57 

the  compact.  But  individuals  cannot  give  what 
they  have  not,  and  no  individual  has  in  himself 
the  right  to  govern  another.  By  the  law  of 
nature  all  men  have  equal  rights,  are  equals, 
and  equals  have  no  authority  one  over  another. 
Nor  has  an  individual  the  sovereign  right  even 
to  himself,  or  the  right  to  dispose  of  himself  as 
he  pleases.  Man  is  not  God,  independent,  self- 
existing,  and  self-sufficing.  He  is  dependent, 
and  dependent  not  only  on  his  Maker,  but  on 
his  fellow-men,  on  society,  and  even  on  nature, 
or  the  material  world.  That  on  which  he  de- 
pends, in  the  measure  in  which  he  depends  on 
it,  contributes  to  his  existence,  to  his  life,  and 
to  his  well-being,  and  has,  by  virtue  of  its  con- 
tribution, a  right  in  him  and  to  him ;  and  hence 
it  is  that  nothing  is  more  painful  to  the  proud 
spirit  than  to  receive  a  favor  that  lays  him 
under  an  obligation  to  another.  The  right 
of  that  on  which  man  depends,  and  by  com- 
munion with  which  he  lives,  limits  his  own 
Tight  over  himself. 

Man  does  not  depend  exclusively  on  society, 
for  it  is  not  his  only  medium  of  communion 
with  Grod,  and  therefore  its  right  to  him  is 
neither  absolute  nor  unlimited  ;  but  still  he  de- 
pends on  it,  lives  in  it,  and  cannot  live  without 
it.     It  has,  then,  certain  rights  over  him,  and 


68  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

he  cannot  enter  into  any  compact,  league,  or 
alliance  that  society  does  not  authorize,  or  at 
least  permit.  These  rights  of  society  override 
his  rights  to  himself,  and  he  can  neither  surren- 
der them  nor  delegate  them.  Other  .rights,  as 
the  rights  of  religion  and  property,  which  are 
held  directly  from  God  and  nature,  and  which 
are  independent  of  society,  are  included  in  what 
are  called  the  natui'al  rights  of  man ;  and  these 
rights  cannot  be  surrendered  in  forming  civil 
society,  for  they  are  rights  of  man  only  before 
civil  society,  and  therefore  not  his  to  cede,  and 
because  they  are  precisely  the  rights  that  gov- 
ernment is  bound  to  respect  and  protect.  The 
compact,  then,  cannot  be  formed  as  pretended, 
for  the  only  rights  individuals  could  delegate 
or  surrender  to  society  to  constitute  the  sum  of 
the  rights  of  government  are  hers  already,  and 
those  which  are  not  hers  are  those  which  can- 
not be  delegated  or  surrendered,  and  in  the  free 
and  full  enjoyment  of  which,  it  is  the  duty,  the 
chief  end  of  government  to  protect  each  and 
every  individuaL 

The  convention  not  only  is  not  a  fact,  but  in- 
dividuals have  no  authority  without  society,  to 
meet  in  convention,  and  enter  into  the  alleged 
compact,  because  they  are  not  independent,  sov 
ereign  individuals.     But  pass  over  this:  sup- 


ORIGIN  OF  GOYERNMENT.  59* 

pose  the  convention,  suppose  the  compact,  it 
must  still  be  conceded  that  it  binds  and  can 
bind  only  those  who  voluntarily  and  deliber- 
ately enter  into  it.  This  is  conceded  by  Mr, 
Jefferson  and  the  American  Congress  of  1776, 
in  the  assertion  that  government  derives  its 
"just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed." 
This  consent,  as  the  matter  is  one  of  life  and 
death,  must  be  free,  deliberate,  formal,  explicit^ 
not  simply  an  assumed,  implied,  or  constructive 
consent.  It  must  be  given  personally,  and  not 
by  one  for  another  without  his  express  author- 
ity. 

It  is  usual  to  infer  the  consent  or  the  accept- 
ance of  the  terms  of  the  compact  from  the 
silence  of  the  individual,  and  also  from  his  con- 
tinued residence  in  the  country  and  submission 
to  its  government.  But  residence  is  no  evi 
dence  of  consent,  because  it  may  be  a  matter 
of  necessity.  The  individual  may  be  unable  to 
emigrate,  if  he  would ;  and  by  what  right  can 
individuals  form  an  as^reement  to  which  I  must- 
consent  or  else  migrate  to  some  strange  land  t 
Can  my  consent,  under  such  circumstances,  even 
if  given,  be  any  thing  but  a  forced  consent,  a 
consent  given  under  duress,  and  therefore  in- 
valid ?  Nothing  can  be  inferred  from  one's 
silence,  for  he  may  have  many  reasons  for  being 


^0  THE  AMEEIOAN  REPUBLIC. 

silent  besides  approval  of  the  government.  He 
may  be  silent  because  speech  would  avail  noth- 
ing ;  because  to  protest  might  be  dangerous — 
cost  him  his  liberty,  if  not  his  life ;  because  he 
sees  and  knows  nothing  better,  and  is  ignorant 
that  he  has  any  choice  in  the  case ;  or  because, 
as  very  likely  is  the  fact  with  the  majority,  he 
has  never  for  a  moment  thought  of  the  matter, 
or  ever  had  his  attention  called  to  it,  and  has 
no  mind  on  the  subject. 

But  however  this  may  be,  there  certainly 
must  be  excluded  from  the  compact  or  obligation 
to  obey  the  government  created  by  it  all  the 
women  of  a  nation,  all  the  children  too  young  to 
be  capable  of  giving  their  consent,  and  all  who 
Are  too  ignorant,  too  weak  of  mind  to  be  able 
to  understand  the  terms  of  the  contract.  These 
several  classes  cannot  be  less  than  three-fourths 
of  the  population  of  any  country.  What  is  to 
be  done  with  them?  Leave  them  without  gov- 
ernment? Extend  the  power  of  the  govern- 
ment over  them?  By  what  right?  Govern- 
ment  derives  its  just  powers  from  the  consent 
of  the  governed,  and  that  consent  they  have 
not  given.  Whence  does  one-fourth  of  the 
population  get  its  right  to  govern  the  other 
three-fourths  ? 

But  what  is  to  be  done  with  the  rights  of 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  61 

minorities?  Is  the  rule  of  unanimity  to  be 
insisted  on  in  the  convention,  and  in  the  gov- 
ernment, when  it  goes  into  operation  ?  Unanim- 
ity is  impracticable,  for  where  there  are  many 
men  there  wiU  be  differences  of  opinion.  .  The 
rule  of  unanimity  gives  to  each  individual  a  veto 
on  the  whole  proceeding,  which  was  the  grand 
defect  of  the  Polish  constitution.  Each  mem- 
ber of  the  Polish  Diet,  which  included  the 
whole  body  of  the  nobility,  had  an  absolute 
veto,  and  could,  alone,  arrest  the  whole  action 
of  the  government.  Will  you  substitute  the 
rule  of  the  majority,  and  say  the  majority  must 
govern  ?  By  what  right  ?  It  is  agreed  to  in 
the  convention.  Unanimously,  or  only  by  a 
majority  ?  The  right  of  the  majority  to  have 
their  will  is,  on  the  social  compact  theory,  a 
conventional  right,  and  therefore  cannot  come 
into  play  before  the  convention  is  completed, 
or  the  social  compact  is  framed  and  accepted. 
How,  in  settling  the  terms  of  the  compact,  will 
you  proceed?  By  majorities?  But  suppose  a 
minority  objects,  and  demands  two- thirds,  three- 
fourths,  or  four-fifths,  and  votes  against  the 
majority  rule,  which  is  carried  only  by  a  sim- 
ple plurality  of  votes,  will  the  proceedings  of 
the  convention  bind  the  dissenting  minority! 


^2  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC 

What  gives  to  the  majority  the  right  to  govern 
ihe  minority  who  dissent  from  its  action  ? 

On  the  supposition  that  society  has  rights 
not  derived  from  individuals,  and  which  are  in- 
trusted to  the  government,  there  is  a  good 
reason  why  the  majority  should  prevail  within 
the  legitimate  sphere  of  government,  because 
the  majority  is  the  best  representative  practica- 
ble of  society  itself;  and  if  the  constitution 
secures  to  minorities  and  dissenting  individuals 
their  natural  rights  and  their  equal  rights  as 
citizens,  they  have  no  just  cause  of  complaint, 
for  the  majority  in  such  case  has  no  power  to 
tyrannize  over  them  or  to  oppress  them.  But 
the  theory  under  examination  denies  that  society 
has  any  rights  except  such  as  it  derives  from 
individuals  who  all  have  equal  rights.  Accord- 
ing to  it,  society  is  itself  conventional,  and 
created  by  free,  independent,  equal,  sovereign 
individuals.  Society  is  a  congress  of  sovereigns, 
in  which  no  one  has  authority  over  another,  and 
no  one  can  be  rightfully  forced  to  submit  to  any 
decree  against  his  will.  In  such  a  congress  the 
rule  of  the  majority  is  manifestly  improper, 
illegitimate,  and  invalid,  unless  adopted  by 
unanimous  consent. 

But  this  is  not  all.  The  individual  is  always 
the  equal  of  himself,  and  if  the  government 


OBIGIN  OF  GOYEENMEXT.  63 

•derives  its  powers  from  the  consent  of  the 
governed,  lie  governs  in  the  government,  and 
parts  with  none  of  his  original  sovereignty. 
The  government  is  not  his  master,  but  his  agent, 
as  the  principal  only  delegates,  not  surrenders, 
his  rights  and  powers  to  the  agent.  He  is  free 
at  any  time  he  pleases  to  recall  the  powers  he 
has  delegated,  to  give  new  instnictions,  or  to 
dismiss  him.  The  sovereignty  of  the  individual 
survives  the  compact,  and  persists  through  all 
the  acts  of  his  agent,  the  government.  He 
must,  then,  be  free  to  withdraw  from  the  com- 
pact whenever  he  judges  it  advisable.  Seces- 
sion is  perfectly  legitimate  if  government  is 
simply  a  contract  between  equals.  The  dis- 
affected, the  criminal,  the  thief  the  government 
would  send  to  prison,  or  the  murderer  it  would 
hang,  would  be  very  likely  to  revoke  his  con- 
sent, and  to  secede  from  the  state.  Any  num- 
ber of  individuals  large  enough  to  count  a  ma- 
jority among  themselves,  indisposed  to  pay  the 
government  taxes,  or  to  perform  the  military 
service  exacted,  might  hold  a  convention,  adopt 
a  secession  ordinance,  and  declare  themselves  a 
free,  independent,  sovereign  state,  and  bid  defi- 
ance to  the  tax-collector  and  the  provost-mar- 
shal, and  that,  too,  without  forfeiting  their 
estates  or   changing  their   domicile.      Would 


64  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

the  government  employ  military  force  to  coerce 
them  back  to  their  allegiance  ?  By  what  right* 
Government  is  their  agent,  their  creature,  and 
no  man  owes  allegiance  to  his  own  agent,  or 
creature. 

The  compact  could  bind  only  temporarily, 
and  could  at  any  moment  be  dissolved.  Mr. 
Jefferson  saw  this,  and  very  consistently  main- 
tained that  one  generation  has  no  power  to  bind 
another;  and,  as  if  this  was  not  enough,  he 
asserted  the  right  of  revolution,  and  gave  it  as 
his  opinion  that  in  every  nation  a  revolution 
once  in  every  generation  is  desirable,  that  is, 
according  to  his  reckoning,  once  every  nineteen 
years.  The  doctrine  that  one  generation  has  no 
power  to  bind  its  successor  is  not  only  a  logical 
conclusion  from  the  theory  that  governments 
derive  their  just  powers  from  the  consent 
of  the  governed,  since  a  generation  cannot  give 
its  consent  before  it  is  bom,  but  is  very  con- 
venient for  a  nation  that  has  contracted  a  large 
national  debt ;  yet,  perhaps,  not  so  convenient  to 
the  public  creditor,  since  the  new  generation 
may  take  it  into  its  head  not  to  assume  or  dis- 
charge the  obligations  of  its  predecessor,  but  to 
repudiate  them.  No  man,  certainly,  can  con- 
tract for  any  one  but  himself;  and  how  then  can 
the  son  be  bound,  without  his  own  personal  or 


ORIGIN  OP  GOVERNMENT.  65 

individual  consent,  jfreely  given,  by  the  obliga- 
tions entered  into  by  his  father  ? 

The  social  compact  is  necessarily  limited  to 
the  individuals  who  form  it,  and  as  necessarily, 
unless  renewed,  expires  with  them.  It  thus 
creates  no  state,  no  political  corporation,  which 
survives  in  all  its  rights  and  powers,  though 
individuals  die.  The  state  is  on  this  theory  a 
voluntary  association,  and  in  principle,  except 
that  it  is  not  a  secret  society,  in  no  respect  dif- 
fers from  the  Carbonari,  or  the  Knights  of  the 
Golden  Circle.  When  Orsini  attempted  to  exe- 
cute the  sentence  of  death  on  the  Emperor  of  the 
French,  in  obedience  to  the  order  of  the  Carbo 
nari,  of  which  the  Emperor  was  a  member,  he  was, 
if  the  theory  of  the  origin  of  government  in  com- 
pact be  true,  no  more  an  assassin  than  was  the 
officer  who  executed  on  the  gallows  the  rebel 
spies  and  incendiaries  Beal  and  Kennedy. 

Certain  it  is  that  the  alleged  social  compact 
has  in  it  no  social  or  civil  element.  It  does  not 
and  cannot  create  society.  It  can  give  only  an 
aggregation  of  individuals,  and  society  is  not  an 
aggregation  nor  even  an  organization  of  indi- 
viduals. It  is  an  organism,  and  individuals  live 
in  its  life  as  well  as  it  in  theirs.  There  is  a 
real .  living  solidarity,  which  makes  individuals 
members  of  the  social  body,  and  members  one 


66  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC 

of  another.  There  is  no  society  without  indi- 
viduals, and  there  are  no  individuals  without 
society;  but  in  society  there  is  that  which  is  not 
individual,  and  is  more  than  all  individuals. 
The  social  compact  is  an  attempt  to  substitute 
for  this  real  living  solidarity,  whicli  gives  to 
society  at  once  unity  of  life  and  diversity  of 
members,  an  artificial  solidaiity,  a  fictitious  uni- 
ty for  a  real  unity,  and  membership  by  contract 
for  real  living  membership,  a  cork  leg  for  that 
which  nature  herself  gives.  Real  government 
has  its  ground  in  this  real  living  solidarity,  and 
represents  the  social  element,  which  is  not  indi- 
vidual, but  above  all  individuals,  as  man  is  above 
men.  But  the  theory  substitutes  a  simple  agency 
for  government,  and  makes  each  individual  its 
principal.  It  is  an  abuse  of  language  to  call  this 
agency  a  government.  It  bas  no  one  faature  or 
element  of  government.  It  has  only  an  artifi- 
cial unity,  based  on  diversity ;  its  authority  is 
only  personal,  individual,  and  in  no  sense  a 
public  authority,  representing  a  public  will,  a 
public  right,  or  a  public  interest.  In  no  coun- 
try  could  government  be  adopted  and  sustained 
if  men  were  left  to  the  wisdom  or  justness  of 
their  theories,  or  in  the  general  afi'airs  of  life 
acted  on  them.  Society,  and  government  as  rep- 
resenting society,  has  a  real  existence,  life,  facul- 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  67 

ties,  and  organs  of  its  own,  not  derived  or 
derivable  from  individuals.  As  well  might  it 
be  maintained  that  the  human  body  consists  in 
and  derives  all  its  life  from  the  particles  of  mat- 
ter it  assimilates  from  its  food,  and  which  are 
constantly  escaping,  as  to  maintain  that  society 
derives  its  life,  or  government  its  powers,  from 
individuals.  No  mechanical  aggregation  of 
brute  matter  can  make  a  living  body,  if  there 
is  no  living  and  assimilating  principle  within; 
and  no  aggregation  of  individuals,  however 
closely  bound  together  by  pacts  or  oaths,  can 
make  society  where  there  is  no  informing 
social  principle  that  aggregates  and  assimilates 
them  to  a  living  body,  or  produce  that  mystic 
existence  called  a  state  or  commonwealth. 

The  origin  of  government  in  the  Contrat 
Social  supposes  the  nation  to  be  a  purely  per- 
sonal affair.  It  gives  the  government  no  terri- 
torial status,  and  clothes  it  with  no  territorial 
rights  or  jurisdiction.  The  government  that 
could  so  originate  would  be,  if  any  thing,  a 
barbaric,  not  a  republican  government.  It  has 
only  the  rights  conferred  on  it,  surrendered  or 
delegated  to  it  by  individuals,  and  therefore,  at 
best,  only  individual  rights.  Individuals  can 
confer  only  such  rights  as  they  have  in  the  sup- 
posed state  of  natuie.     In  that  state  there  is 


68  THE  AMEBICAN  REPUBLIC. 

neither  private  nor  public  domain.  The  earth 
in  that  state  is  not  property,  and  is  open  to  the 
first  occupant,  and  the  occupant  can  lay  no 
claim  to  any  more  than  he  actually  occupies. 
Whence,  then,  does  government  deiive  its  terri- 
torial jurisdiction,  and  its  right  of  eminent  do- 
main claimed  by  all  national  governments? 
Whence  its  title  to  vacant  or  unoccupied  lands? 
How  does  any  particular  government  fix  its 
territorial  boundaries,  and  obtain  the  right  to 
prescribe  who  may  occupy,  and  on  what  condi- 
tions, the  vacant  lands  within  those  bounda- 
ries? Whence  does  it  get  its  jurisdiction  of 
navigable  rivers,  lakes,  bays,  and  the  seaboard 
within  its  territorial  limits,  as  appertaining  to 
its  domain  ?  Here  are  rights  that  it  could  not 
have  derived  from  individuals,  for  individuals 
never  possessed  them  in  the  so-called  state  of 
nature.  The  concocters  of  the  theory  evidently 
overlooked  these  rights,  or  considered  them  of 
no  importance.  They  seem  never  to  have  con- 
templated the  existence  of  territorial  states,  or 
the  division  of  mankind  into  nations  fixed  to 
the  soiL  They  seem  not  to  have  supposed 
the  earth  could  be  appropriated ;  and,  indeed, 
many  of  their  followers  pretend  that  it  cannot 
be,  and  that  the  public  lands  of  a  nation  are 
open  lands,  and   whoso  chooses  may  occupy 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  69 

them,  without  leave  asked  of  the  national  au- 
thority or  granted.  The  American  people  re- 
tain more  than  one  reminiscence  of  the  nomadic 
and  predatory  habits  of  their  Teutonic  or  Scy- 
thian ancestors  before  they  settled  on  the  banks 
of  the  Don  or  the  Danube,  on  the  Northern 
Ocean,  in  Scania,  or  came  in  contact  with  the 
Orseco-Roman  civilization. 

Yet  mankind  are  divided  into  nations,  and 
all  civilized  nations  are  fixed  to  the  soil.  The 
territory  is  defined,  and  is  the  domain  of  the 
state,  from  which  all  private  proprietors  hold 
their  title-deeds.  Individual  proprietors  hold 
under  the  state,  and  often  hold  more  than  thev 
occupy ;  but  it  retains  in  all  private  estates  the 
eminent  domain,  and  prohibits  the  alienation 
of  land  to  one  who  is  not  a  citizen.  It  defends 
its  domain,  its  public  imoccupied  lands,  and 
the  lands  owned  by  private  individuals,  against 
all  foreign  powers.  Now  whence,  if  government 
has  only  the  rights  ceded  it  by  individuals,  does 
it  get  this  domain,  and  hold  the  right  to  treat 
settlers  on  even  its  unoccupied  lands  as  tres- 
passers ?  In  the  state  of  nature  the  teriitorial 
rights  of  individuals,  if  any  they  have,  are  re- 
stricted to  the  portion  of  land  they  occupy  with 
their  rude  culture,  and  with  their  flocks  and 
herds,  and  in  civilized  nations  to  what   they 


70  fHE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

hold  from  the  state,  and,  therefore,  the  right  as 
held  and  defended  by  all  nations,  and  without 
which  the  nation  has  no  status,  no  fixed  dwell- 
ing, and  is  and  can  be  no  state,  could  never 
have  been  derived  from  individuals.  The  ear- 
liest notices  of  Rome  show  the  city  in  posses- 
sion of  the  sacred  territory,  to  which  the  state 
and  all  political  power  are  attached.  Whence 
did  Rome  become  a  landholder,  and  the  gov- 
erning people  a  territorial  people?  Whence 
does  any  nation  become  a  territorial  nation  and 
lord  of  the  domain  ?  Certainly  never  by  the 
cession  of  individuals,  and  hence  no  civilized 
government  ever  did  or  could  originate  in  the 
so-called  social  compact. 


ORIGIN  OP    GOVERNMENT.  71 


CHAPTER  V. 

ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT— Go^mv^Ti. 

m.  The  tendency  of  the  last  century  was  to 
individualism ;  that  of  the  present  is  to  social- 
ism. The  theory  of  Hobbes,  Locke,  Kousseau, 
and  Jefferson,  though  not  formally  abandoned, 
and  still  held  by  many,  has  latterly  been  much 
modified,  if  not  wholly  transformed.  Sover- 
eignty, it  is  now  maintained,  is  inherent  in  the 
people;  not  individually,  indeed,  but  collectively, 
or  the  people  as  society.  The  constitution  is 
held  not  to  be  simply  a  compact  or  agreement 
entered  into  by  the  people  as  individuals  crea- 
ting civil  society  and  government,  but  a  law  or- 
dained by  the  sovereign  people,  prescribing  the 
constitution  of  the  state  and  defining  its  rights 
and  powers. 

This  transformation,  which  is  rather  going  on 
than  completed,  is,  under  one  aspect  at  least,  a 
progress,  or  rather  a  return  to  the  sounder  prin- 
ciples of  antiquity.  Under  it  government 
ceases  to  be  a  mere  agencyj  which  must  obtain 


72  THE  AMEEIOAN  REPUBLIC 

the  assassin's  consent  to  be  hung  before  it  can 
rightfully  hang  him,  and  becomes  authority, 
which  is  one  and  imperative.  The  people 
taken  collectively  are  society,  and  society  is  a 
living  organism,  not  a  mere  aggregation  of  in- 
dividuals. It  does  not,  of  course,  exist  without 
individuals,  but  it  is  something  more  than  in- 
dividuals, and  has  rights  not  derived  from  them, 
and  which  are  paramount  to  theirs.  There  is 
more  truth,  and  truth  of  a  higher  order,  in  this 
than  in  the  theory  of  the  social  compact.  In- 
dividuals, to  a  certain  extent,  derive  their  life 
from  God  through  society,  and  so  far  they  de- 
pend on  her,  and  they  are  hers;  she  owns 
them,  and  has  the  right  to  dp  as  she  will  with 
them.  On  this  theory  the  state  emanates  from 
society,  and  is  supreme.  It  coincides  with 
the  ancient  Greek  and  Roman  theory,  as  ex- 
pressed by  Cicero,  already  cited.  Man  is  born 
in  society  and  remains  there,  and  it  may  be  re- 
garded as  the  source  of  ancient  Greek  and  Ro- 
man patriotism,  which  still  commands  the  admi- 
ration of  the  civilized  world.  The  state  with 
Greece  and  Rome  was  a  living  reality,  and 
loyalty  a  religion.  The  Romans  held  Rome 
to  be  a  divinity,  gave  her  statues  and  altars, 
and  offered  her  divine  worship.  This  was 
superstition,  no  doubt,  but  it  had  in  it  an  ele- 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  »  73 

rment  of  truth.  To  every  tnie  philosopher  there 
is  something  divine  in  the  state,  and  truth 
in  all  theories.  Society  stands  nearer  to  God, 
and  participates  more  immediately  of  the  Di- 
vine essence,  and  the  state  is  a  more  lively  image 
of  God  than  the  individual.  It  was  man,  the 
generic  and  reproductive  man,  not  the  isolated 
individual,  that  was  created  in  the  image  and 
likeness  of  his  Maker.  "  And  God  created  man 
in  his  own  image  ;  in  the  image  of  God  created 
he  him ;  male  and  female  created  he  them." 

This  theory  is  usually  called  the  democratic 
■theory,  and  it  enlists  in  its  support  the  instincts, 
the  intelligence,  the  living  forces,  and  active 
tendencies  of  the  age.  Kings,  kaisers,  and 
hierarchies  are  powerless  before  it,  and  war 
-against  it  in  vain.  The  most  they  can  do  is  to 
restrain  its  excesses,  or  to  guard  against  its 
•abuses.  Its  advocates,  in  returning  to  it,  some- 
times revive  in  its  name  the  old  pagan  super- 
stition. Not  a  few  of  the  European  democrats 
recognize  in  the  earth,  in  heaven,  or  in  hell,  no 
power  superior  to  the  people,  and  say  not  only 
people-king,  but  people-God.  They  say  abso- 
lutely, without  any  qualification,  the  voice  of 
the  people  is  the  voice  of  God,  and  make  their 
will  the  supreme  law,  nOt  only  in  politics,  but 
in  religion,  philosophy,  morals,  science,  and  the 


74  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

arts.  The  people  not  only  found  the  state^ 
but  also  the  church.  They  inspire  or  reveal 
the  truth,  ordain  or  prohibit  worships,  judge  of 
doctrines,  and  decide  cases  of  conscience.  Maz- 
zini  said,  when  at  the  head  of  the  Roman  Re- 
public in  1848,  the  question  of  religion  must 
be  remitted  to  the  judgment  of  the  people. 
Yet  this  theory  is  the  dominant  theory  of  the 
age,  and  is  in  all  civilized  nations  advancing 
'^th  apparently  irresistible  force. 

But  this  theory  has  its  difficulties.  Who  are 
the  collective  people  that  have  the  rights  of 
society,  or,  who  are  the  sovereign  people  ?  The 
word  people  is  vague,  and  in  itself  determines 
nothing.  It  may  include  a  larger  or  a  smaller 
number ;  it  may  mean  the  political  people,  or 
it  may  mean  simply  population ;  it  may  mean 
peasants,  artisans,  shopkeepers,  traders,  mer- 
chants, as  distinguished  from  the  nobility; 
hired  laborei*8  or  workmen  as  distinguished  from 
their  employer,  or  slaves  as  distinguished  from 
their  master  or  owner.  In  which  of  these  senses 
is  the  word  to  be  taken  when  it  is  said,  "  The 
people  are  sovereign  ?"  The  people  are  the 
population  or  inhabitants  of  one  and  the  same 
country.  That  is  something.  But  who  or 
what  determines  the  country  ?  Is  the  country 
the  whole  territory  of  the  globe  ?     That  will 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  76"' 

not  be  said,  especially  since  the  dispersion  of 
mankind  and  their  division  into  separate  na- 
tions. Is  the  territory  indefinite  or  undefined  ?. 
Then  indefinite  or  undefined  are  its  inhabitants,, 
or  the  people  invested  with  the  rights  of  so- 
ciety. Is  it  defined  and  its  boundaries  fixed  ? 
Who  has  done  it  ?  The  people.  But  who  are 
the  people  ?  We  are  as  wise  as  we  were  at 
starting.  The  logicians  say  that  the  definition 
of  idem  per  idem^  or  the  same  by  the  same,  is 
simply  no  definition  at  all. 

The  people  are  the  nation,  undoubtedly,  if 
you  mean  by  the  people  the  sovereign  people. 
But  who  are  the  people  constituting  the  nation? 
The  sovereign  people  ?  This  is  only  to  revolve- 
in  a  vicious  circle.  The  nation  is  the  tribe  or 
the  people  living  under  the  same  regimen,  and 
born  of  the  same  ancestor,  or  sprung  from  the 
same  ancestor  or  progenitor.  But  where  find  a 
nation  in  this  the  primitive  sense  of  the  word  ? 
Migration,  conquest,  and  intermarriage,  have  so 
broken  up  and  intermingled  the  pnmitive 
races,  that  it  is  more  than  doubtful  if  a  single 
nation,  tribe,  or  family  of  unmixed  blood  now 
exists  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  A  Frenchman, . 
Italian,  Spaniard,  German,  or  Englishman,  may 
have  the  blood  of  a  hundred  different  races- 
coursing  in  his  veins.     The  nation  is  the  people- 


76  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

inhabiting  the  same  country,  and  united  under 
one  and  the  same  government,  it  is  further 
answered.  The  nation,  then,  is  not  purely  per- 
sonal, but  also  territoriaL  Then,  again,  the 
question  comes  up,  who  or  what  determines  the 
territory  ?  The  government  ?  But  not  before 
it  is  constituted,  and  it  cannot  be  constituted 
till  its  territorial  limits  are  determined.  The 
tribe  doubtless  occupies  territory,  but  is  not 
"fixed  to  it,  and  derives  no  jurisdiction  from  it, 
ind  therefore  is  not  territoriaL  But  a  nation, 
in  the  modern  or  civilized  sense,  is  fixed  to  the 
territory,  and  derives  from  it  its  jurisdiction, 
or  sovereignty;  and,  therefore,  till  the  terri- 
tory is  determined,  the  nation  is  not  and  cannot 
be  determined. 

The  question  is  not  an  idle  question.  It  is 
one  of  great  practical  importance;  for,  till  it 
is  settled,  we  can  neither  determine  who  are 
the  sovereign  people,  nor  who  are  united  under 
one  and  the  same  government.  Laws  have  no 
-extra-territorial  force,  and  the  officer  who  should 
attempt  to  enforce  the  national  laws  beyond  the 
national  territory  would  be  a  trespasser.  If  the 
limits  are  undetermined,  the  government  is  not 
territorial,  and  can  claim  as  within  its  jurisdic- 
tion only  those  who  choose  to  acknowledge  its 
authority.     The  importance  of  the  question  has 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  77 

"been  recently  brought  home  to  the  American 
people  by  the  secession  of  eleven  or  more 
States  from  the  Union.  Were  these  States  a  part 
of  the  American  nation,  or  were  they  not? 
Was  the  war  which  followed  secession,  and 
which  cost  so  many  lives  and  so  much  treasure, 
a  civil  war  or  a  foreign  war  ?  Were  the  seces- 
sionists traitors  and  rebels  to  their  sovereign, 
or  were  they  patriots  fighting  for  the  liberty 
and  independence  of  their  country  and  the 
right  of  self-government?  All  on  both  sides 
agreed  that  the  nation  is  sovereign ;  the  dispute 
was  as  to  the  existence  of  the  nation  itself,  and 
the  extent  of  its  jurisdiction.  Doubtless,  when 
a  nation  has  a  generally  recognized  existence  as 
an'  historical  fact,  most  of  the  difficulties  in  de- 
termining who  are  the  sovereign  people  can  be 
got  over ;  but  the  question  here  concerns  the 
institution  of  government,  and  determining  who 
constitute  sodiety  and  have  the  right  to  meet 
in  person,  or  by  their  delegates  in  convention, 
to  institute  it.  This  question,  so  important, 
and  at  times  so  difficult,  the  theory  of  the 
origin  of  government  in  the  people  collectively, 
or  the  nation,  does  not  solve,  or  furnish  any 
means  of  solving. 

But  suppose  this  difficulty  surmounted,  there 
is  still  another,  and  a  very  grave  one,  to  over- 


78  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

•come.  The  theory  assumes  that  the  people 
collectively,  "in  their  own  native  right  and 
might,"  are  sovereign.  According  to  it  the 
people  are  ultimate,  and  free  to  do  whatever 
they  please.  This  sacrifices  individual  free- 
dom. The  origin  of  government  in  a  compact 
entered  into  by  individuals,  each  with  all  and 
all  with  each,  sacrificed  the  rights  of  society, 
and  assumed  each  individual  to  be  in  himself 
an  independent  sovereignty.  K  logically  carried 
6ut,  there  could  be  no  such  crime  as  treason, 
there  could  be  no  state,  and  no  public  authori- 
ty. This  new  theory  transfers  to  society  the 
sovereignty  which  that  asserted  for  the  indi- 
vidual, and  asserts  social  despotism,  or  the  ab- 
solutism of  the  state.  It  asserts  with  sufficient 
energy  public  authority,  or  the  right  of  the 
people  to  govern;  but  it  leaves  no  space  for 
individual  rights,  which  society  must  recognize, 
respect,  and  protect.  This  was  the  grand  de- 
fect of  the  ancient  Gra^co-Roman  civilization. 
The  historian  explores  in  vain  the  records  of 
the  old  Greek  and  Roman  republics  for  any 
recognition  of  the  rights  of  individuals  not 
held  as  privileges  or  concessions  from  the  state. 
Society  recognized  no  limit  to  her  authority, 
and  the  state  claimed  over  individuals  all  the 
authority  of  the  patriarch  over  his  household, 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  79 

"the  chief  over  his  tribe,  or  the  absolute  mon- 
arch over  his  subjects.  The  direct  and  indirect 
influence  of  the  body  of  freemen  admitted  to  a 
voice  in  public  affairs,  in  determining  the  reso- 
lutions and  action  of  the  state,  no  doubt  tem- 
pered in  practice  to  some  extent  the  authority  of 
the  state,  and  prevented  acts  of  gross  oppression; 
but  in  theory  the  state  was  absolute,  and  the 
people  individually  were  placed  at  the  mercy 
of  the  people  collectively,  or,  rather,  the  ma- 
jority of  the  collective  j)eople. 

Under  ancient  republicanism,  there  were 
lights  of  the  state  and  rights  of  the  citizen, 
dut  no  rights  of  man,  held  independently  of 
society,  and  not  derived  from  God  through  the 
state.  The  recognition  of  these  rights  by  mod- 
ern society  is  due  to  Christianity :  some  say  to 
the  barbarians,  who  overthrew  the  Roman  em- 
pire; but  this  last  opinion  is  not  well  founded. 
The  barbarian  chiefs  and  nobles  had  no  doubt 
a  lively  sense  of  personal  freedom  and  inde- 
pendence, but  for  themselves  only.  They  had 
no  conception  of  personal  freedom  as  a  general  or 
universal  right,  and  men  never  obtain  universal 
principles  by  generalizing  particulars.  They 
may  give  a  general  truth  a  particular  appli- 
cation, but  not  a  particular  truth — understood 
to  be  a  particular  truth — a  general  or  universal 


80  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC 

application.  They  are  too  good  logicians  for 
tbat.  The  barbarian  individual  freedom  and 
personal  independence  was  never  generalized 
into  the  doctrine  of  the  rights  of  man,  any- 
more than  the  freedom  of  the  master  has  been 
generalized  into  the  right  of  his  slaves  to  be 
free.  The  doctrine  of  individual  freedom  be* 
fore  the  state  is  due  to  the  Christian  relig- 
ion, which  asserts  the  dignity  and  worth  of 
every  human  soul,  the  accountability  to  God 
of  each  man  for  himself,  and  lays  it  down  as 
law  for  every  one  that  God  is  to  be  obeyed 
rather  than  men.  The  church  practically  de- 
nied the  absolutism  of  the  state,  and  asserted 
for  every  man  rights  not  held  from  the  state,  in 
converting  the  empire  to  Christianity,  in  defi* 
ance  of  the  state  authority,  and  the  imperial 
edicts  punishing  with  death  the  profession  of  the 
Christian  faith.  In  this  she  practically,  as  well 
as  theoretically,  overthrew  state  absolutism,  and 
infused  into  modern  society  the  doctrine  that 
every  individual,  even  the  lowest  and  meanest, 
has  rights  which  the  state  neither  confers  nor 
can  abrogate ;  and  it  will  only  be  by  extinguish- 
ing in  modern  society  the  Christian  faith,  and 
obliterating  all  traces  of  Christian  civilization, 
that  state  absolutism  can  be  revived  with  more 
than  a  partial  and  temporary  success. 


ORIGIN  OF  GOTERNMENT.  81 

The  doctrine  of  individual  liberty  may  be 
abused,  and  so  explained  as  to  deny  tbe  rights 
of  society,  and  to  become  pure  individualism ; 
but  no  political  system  that  runs  to  the  op- 
posite extreme,  and  absorbs  the  individual  in 
the  state,  stands  the  least  chance  of  any  general 
or  permanent  success  till  Christianity  is  extin- 
guished. Yet  the  assertion  of  principles  v^hich 
logically  imply  state  absolutism  is  not  entirely 
harmless,  even  in  Christian  countries.  Error 
is  never  harmless,  and  only  truth  can  give  a 
solid  foundation  on  which  to  build.  Individu- 
alism and  socialism  are  each  opposed  to  the 
other,  and  each  has  only  a  partial  truth.  The 
state  founded  on  either  cannot  stand,  and  so- 
ciety will  only  alternate  between  the  two  ex- 
tremes. To-day  it  is  torn  by  a  revolution  in  favor 
of  socialism ;  to-morrow  it  will  be  torn  by  an- 
other in  favor  of  individualism,  and  without 
effecting  any  real  progress  by  either  revolution. 
Real  progress  can  be  secured  only  by  recogni- 
zing and  building  on  the  truth,  not  as  it  exists 
in  our  opinions  or  in  our  theories,  but  as  it 
exists  in  the  world  of  reality,  and  independent 
of  our  opinions. 

Now,  social  despotism  or  state  absolutism  is 
not  based  on  truth  or  reality.  Society  has 
certain  rights  over  individuals,  for  she  is  a 


82  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

medium  of  their  communion  with  God,  or 
through  which  they  derive  life  from  God,  the 
primal  source  of  all  life;  but  she  is  not  the 
only  medium  of  man's  life.  Man,  as  was  said 
in  the  beginning,  lives  by  communion  with 
God,  and  he  communes  with  God  in  the  cre- 
ative act  and  the  Incarnation,  through  his  kind, 
and  through  nature.  This  threefold  com- 
munion gives  rise  to  three  institutions — re- 
ligion or  the  church,  society  or  the  state,  and 
property.  The  life  that  man  derives  from  Go(\ 
through  religion  and  property,  is  not  derived 
from  him  through  society,  and  consequently  so 
much  of  his  life  he  holds  independently  of  so- 
ciety; and  this  constitutes  his  rights  as  a  man 
as  distinguished  from  his  rights  as  a  citizen. 
In  relation  to  society,  as  not  held  from  God 
through  her,  these  are  termed  his  natural  rights, 
which  she  must  hold  inviolable,  and  govern- 
ment protect  for  every  one,  whatever  his  com- 
plexion or  his  social  position.  These  rights — 
the  rights  of  conscience  and  the  rights  of  prop 
erty,  with  all  their  necessary  implications — are 
limitations  of  the  rights  of  society,  and  the  in- 
dividual has  the  right  to  plead  them  against 
the  state.  Society  does  not  confer  them,  and 
it  cannot  take  them  away,  for  they  are  at  least 
as  sacred  and  as  fundamental  as  her  own. 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  83 

But  even  this  limitation  of  popular  sover- 
eignty is  not  alL  The  people  can  be  sovereign 
only  in  the  sense  in  which  they  exist  and  act. 
The  people  are  not  God,  whatever  some  theo- 
rists may  pretend — are  not  independent,  self- 
existent,  and  self-sufficing.  They  are  as  depend- 
ent collectively  as  individually,  and  therefore 
can  exist  and  act  only  as  second  cause,  never  as 
first  cause.  They  can,  then,  even  in  the  limited 
sphere  of  their  sovereignty,  be  sovereign  only 
in  a  secondary  sense,  never  absolute  sovereign 
in  their  own  independent  right.  They  are  sov- 
ereign only  to  the  extent  to  which  they  impart 
life  to  the  individual  members  of  society,  and 
only  in  the  sense  in  which  she  imparts  it,  or  is 
its  cause.  She  is  not  its  first  cause  or  creator, 
and  is  the  medial  cause  or  medium  through 
which  they  derive  it  from  God,  not  its  efficient 
cause  or  primary  source.  Society  derives  her 
own  life  from  God,  and  exists  and  acts  only  as 
dependent  on  him.  Then  she  is  sovereign  over 
individuals  only  as  dependent  on  God.  Her 
dominion  is  then  not  original  and  absolute,  but 
secondary  and  derivative. 

This  third  theory  does  not  err  in  assuming 
that  the  people  collectively  are  more  than  the 
people  individually,  or  in  denying  society  to  be 
a  mere  aggregation  of  individuals  with  no  life 


84  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

and  no  rights  but  what  it  derives  from  them ; 
nor  even  in  asserting  that  the  people  in  the 
sense  of  society  are  sovereign,  but  in  asserting 
that  they  are  sovereign  in  their  own  native  or 
underived  right  and  might.  Society  has  not  in 
herself  the  absolute  right  to  govern,  because 
she  has  not  the  absolute  dominion  either  of  her- 
self or  her  members.  God  gave  to  man  do- 
minion over  the  irrational  creation,  for  he  made 
irrational  creatures  for  man ;  but  he  never  gave 
him  either  individually  or  collectively  the  do- 
minion over  the  rational  creation.  The  the- 
ory that  the  people  are  absolutely  sovereign 
in  their  own  independent  right  and  might,  as 
some  zealous  democrats  explain  it,  asserts  the 
fundamental  principle  of  despotism,  and  all  des- 
potism is  false,  for  it  identifies  the  creature  with 
the  Creator.  No  creature  is  creator,  or  has  the 
rights  of  creator,  and  consequently  no  one  in 
his  own  right  is  or  can  be  sovereign.  This 
third  theory,  therefore,  is  untenable. 

IV  A  still  more  recent  class  of  philosophers, 
if  philosophers  they  may  be  called,  reject  the  ori- 
gin of  government  in  the  people  individually 
or  collectively.  Satisfied  that  it  has  never  been 
instituted  by  a  voluntary  and  deliberate  act  of 
the  people,  and  confounding  g  )vernment  as  a 


ORIGIN  OF  aOVERNMENT.  85 

fact  with  government  as  authority,  maintain 
that  government  is  a  spontaneous  development 
of  nature.  Nature  develops  it  as  the  liver  se- 
cretes bile,  as  the  bee  constructs  her  cell,  or  the 
beaver  builds  his  dam.  Nature,  working  by 
her  own  laws  and  inherent  energy,  develops  so- 
ciety, and  society  develops  government.  That 
is  all  the  secret.  Questions  as  to  the  origin  of 
government  or  its  rights,  beyond  the  simple  posi- 
tive fact,  belong  to  the  theological  or  metaphys- 
ical stage  of  the  development  of  nature,  but 
are  left  behind  when  the  race  has  passed  be- 
yond that  stage,  and  has  reached  the  epoch  of 
positive  science,  in  which  all,  except  the  posi- 
tive fact,  is  held  to  be  unreal  and  non-existent. 
Government,  like  every  thing  else  in  the  uni 
verse,  is  simply  a  positive  development  of  na- 
ture. Science  explains  the  laws  and  conditions 
of  the  development,  but  disdains  to  ask  for  its 
origin  or  ground  in  any  order  that  transcends 
the  changes  of  the  world  of  space  and  time. 

These  philosophers'  profess  to  eschew  all 
theory,  and  yet  they  only  oppose  theory  to 
theory.  The  assertion  that  reality  for  the  hu- 
man mind  is  restricted  to  the  positive  facts  of 
the  sensible  order,  is  purely  theoretic,  and  is 
•any  thing  but  a  positive  fact.  Principles  are  as 
really  objects  of  science  as  facts,  and  it  is  only 


86  THE  AMBRICAN  REPUBLIC. 

in  the  light  of  principles  that  facts  themselves 
are  intelligible.  If  the  human  mind  had  no 
science  of  reality  that  transcends  the  sensible 
order,  or  the  positive  fact,  it  could  have  no 
science  at  all.  As  things  exist  only  in  their 
principles  or  causes,  so  can  they  be  known  only 
in  their  principles  and  causes ;  for  things  can  be 
known  only  as  they  are,  or  as  they  really  exist. 
The  science  that  pretends  to  deduce  principle* 
from  particular  facts,  or  to  rise  from  the  fact  by 
way  of  reasoning  to  an  order  that  transcend* 
facts,  and  in  which  facts  have  their  origin,  is 
undoubtedly  chimerical,  and  as  against  that  the 
positivists  are  unquestionably  right.  But  to 
maintain  that  man  has  no  intelligence  of  any 
thing  beyond  the  fact,  no  intuition  or  intellec- 
tual apprehension  of  its  principle  or  cause,  is 
equally  chimerical.  The  human  mind  cannot 
have  all  science,  but  it  has  real  science  as  far  as 
it  goes,  and  real  science  is  the  knowledge  of 
things  as  they  are,  not  as  they  are  not.  Sen- 
sible facts  are  not  intelligible  by  themselves,  be- 
cause they  do  not  exist  by  themselves ;  and  if 
the  human  mind  could  not  penetrate  beyond 
the  individual  fact,  beyond  the  mimetic  to  the 
methexic,  or  transcendental  principle,  copied  or 
imitated  by  the  individual  fact,  it  could  never 
know  the  f»ict  itself.     The   error  of  modem 


ORIGIN  OF    GOVERNMENT.  87 

philosopliers,  or  pliilosoplierlings,isin  supposing 
the  piinciple  is  deduced  or  inferred  from  the 
fact,  and  in  denying  that  the  human  mind  has 
direct  and  immediate  intuition  of  it. 

Something  that  transcends  the  sensible  order 
there  must  be,  or  there  could  be  no  develop 
ment ;  and  if  we  had  no  science  of  it,  we  could 
never  assert  that  development  is  development, 
or  scientifically  explain  the  laws  and  conditions 
of  development.  Development  is  explication, 
and  supposes  a  germ  which  precedes  it,  and  is 
not  itself  a  development;  and  development,  how- 
ever far  it  may  be  carried,  can  never  do  more 
than  realize  the  possibilities  of  the  germ.  De- 
velopment is  not  creation,  and  cannot  supply  its 
own  germ.  That  at  least  must  be  given  by  the 
Creator,  for  from  nothing  nothing  can  be  devel- 
oped. If  authority  has  not  its  germ  in  nature, 
it  cannot  be  developed  from  nature  sponta- 
neously or  otherwise.  All  government  has  a 
governing  will ;  and  without  a  will  that  com. 
mands,  there  is  no  government ;  and  nature  has 
in  her  spontaneous  developments  no  will,  for 
she  has  no  personality.  Reason  itself,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  will,  only  presents  the  end  and 
the  means,  but  does  not  govern ;  it  prescribes  a 
rule,  but  cannot  ordain  a  law.  An  imperative 
will,  the  will  of  a  superior  who  has  the  rio^ht  to 


88  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

command  what  reason  dictates  or  approves,  is 
essential  to  government ;  and  that  will  is  not 
developed  from  nature,  because  it  has  no  germ 
in  nature.  So  something  above  and  beyond 
nature  must  be  asserted,  or  government  itself 
cannot  be  asserted,  even  as  a  development. 
Nature  is  no  more  self-sufficing  than  are  the 
people,  or  than  is  the  individual  man. 

No  doubt  there  is  a  natural  law,  which  is 
law  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word  law ;  but 
this  is  a  positive  law  under  which  nature  is 
placed  by  a  sovereign  above  herself,  and  is 
never  to  be  confounded  with  those  laws  of  na- 
ture so-called,  according  to  which  she  is  produc- 
tive as  second  cause,  or  produces  her  effects,* 
which  are  not  properly  laws  at  all.  Fire  bums, 
water  flows,  rain  falls,  birds  fly,  fishes  swim, 
food  nourishes,  poisons  kill,  one  substance  has 
a  chemical  affinity  for  another,  the  needle  points 
to  the  pole,  by  a  natural  law,  it  is  said ;  that  is, 
the  effects  are  produced  by  an  inherent  and 
uniform  natural  force.  Laws  in  this  sense  are 
simply  physical  forces,  and  are  nature  herself. 
The  natural  law,  in  an  ethical  sense,  is  not  a 
physical  law,  is  not  a  natural  force,  but  a  law 
imposed  by  the  Creator  on  all  moral  creatures, 
that  is,  all  creatures  endowed  with  reason  and 
free-will,  and  is  called  natural  because  promul- 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  8d 

gated  in  natural  reason,  or  the  reason  common 
^nd  essential  to  all  moral  creatures.  This  is 
the  moral  law.  It  is  what  the  French  call  le 
■droit  naturelj  natural  right,  and,  as  the  theo- 
logians teach  us,  is  the  transcript  of  the  eternal 
law,  the  eternal  will  or  reason  of  God.  It  is 
the  foundation  of  all  law,  and  all  acts  of  a  state 
that  contravene  it  are,  as  St.  Augustine  main- 
tains, violences  rather  than  laws.  The  moral 
law  is  no  development  of  nature,  for  it  is  ahove 
nature,  and  is  imposed  on  nature.  The  only 
development  there  is  about  it  is  in  our  under- 
standing of  it. 

There  is,  of  course,  development  in  nature, 
for  nature  considered  as  creation  has  been 
<;reated  in  germ,  and  is  completed  only  in  suc- 
cessive developments.  Hence  the  origin  of 
space  and  time.  There  would  have  been  no 
space  if  there  had -been  no  external  creation, 
and  no  time  if  the  creation  had  been  completed 
externally  at  once,  as  it  was  in  relation  to  the 
Creator.  Ideal  space  is  simply  the  ability  of 
God  to  externize  his  creative  act,  and  actual 
space  is  the  relation  of  coexistence  in  the  things 
created;  ideal  time  is  the  ability  of  God  to 
create  existences  with  the  capacity  of  being 
completed  by  successive  developmeijts,  and  ac- 
tual time  is  the  relation  of  these  in  the  order  of 


90  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

succession,  and  when  the  existence  is  completed 
oj"  consummated  development  ceases,  and  time 
is  no  more.  In  relation  to  himself  the  Creator's 
works  are  complete  from  the  first,  and  hence 
with  him  there  is  no  time,  for  there  is  no  suc- 
cession. But  in  relation  to  itself  creation  is  in- 
complete, and  there  is  room  for  development, 
which  may  be  continued  till  the  whole  possibil- 
ity of  creation  is  actualized.  Here  is  the  foun- 
dation of  what  is  true  in  the  modern  doctrine 
of  progress.  Man  is  progressive,  because  the 
possibilities  of  his  nature  are  successively  un^ 
folded  and  actualized. 

Development  is  a  fact,  and  its  laws  and  con- 
ditions  may  be  scientifically  ascertained  and 
defined.  All  generation  is  development,  as  is 
all  growth,  physical,  moral,  or  intellectual.  But 
every  thing  is  developed  in  its  ovm  order,  and 
after  its  kind.  The  Darwinian  theory  of  the 
development  of  species  is  not  sustained  by 
science.  The  development  starts  from  the 
germ,  and  in  the  germ  is  given  the  law  or  prin- 
ciple of  the  development.  From  the  acorn  is 
developed  the  oak,  never  the  pine  or  the  lin- 
den. Every  kind  generates  its  kind,  never  an- 
other. But  no  development  is,  strictly  speak- 
ing, spontaneous,  or  the  result  alone  of  the  in- 
herent energy  or  force  of  the  germ  developed. 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  91^ 

There  is  not  only  a  solidarity  of  race,  but  in 
some  sense  of  all  races,  or  species ;  all  created 
things  are  bound  to  their  Creator,  and  to  one 
another.  One  and  the  same  law  or  principle 
of  life  pervades  all  creation,  binding  the  uni- 
verse together  in  a  unity  that  copies  or  imitates 
the  unity  of  the  Creator.  No  creature  is  isolated 
from  the  rest,  or  absolutely  independent  of 
others.  All  are  parts  of  one  stupendous  whole, 
and  each  depends  on  the  whole,  and  the  whole 
on  each,  and  each  on  each.  All  creatures  are 
members  of  one  body,  and  members  one  of 
another.  The  germ  of  the  oak  is  in  the  acorn,, 
but  the  acorn  left  to  itself  alone  can  never  grow 
into  the  oak,  any  more  than  a  body  at  rest  can 
place  itself  in  motion.  Lay  the  acorn  away  in 
your  closet,  where  it  is  absolutely  deprived  of 
air,  heat,  and  moisture,  and  in  vain  will  you 
watch  for  its  germination.  Germinate  it  cannot 
without  some  external  influence,  or  com- 
munion, so  to  speak,  with  the  elements  from 
which  it  derives  its  sustenance  and  support. 

There  can  be  no  absolutely  spontaneous  de- 
velopment. All  things  are  doubtless  active,, 
for  nothing  exists  except  in  so  far  as  it  is  an  ac- 
tive force  of  some  sort ;  but  only  God  himself 
alone  suffices  for  his  own  activity.  All  cre- 
ated things  are  dependent,  have  not  their  being; 


^92  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

in  themselves,  and  are  real  only  as  they  par- 
ticipate, through  the  creative  act,  of  the  Divine 
being.  The  germ  can  no  more  be  developed 
than  it  could  exist  without  God,  and  no  more 
develop  itself  than  it  could  create  itself.  What 
is  called  the  law  of  development  is  in  the  germ ; 
but  that  law  or  force  can  operate  only  in  con- 
junction with  another  force  or  other  forces. 
All  development,  as  all  growth,  is  by  accretion 
or  assimilation.  The  assimilating  force  is,  if 
you  will,  in  the  germ,  but  the  matter  assimi- 
lated comes  and  must  come  from  abroad. 
Every  herdsman  knows  it,  and  knows  that  to 
rear  his  stock  he  must  supply  them  with  ap- 
propriate food;  every  husbandman  knows  it, 
and  knows  that  to  raise  a  crop  of  corn,  he  must 
plant  the  seed  in  a  soil  duly  prepared,  and 
which  will  supply  the  gases  needed  for  its 
germination,  growth,  flowering,  boiling,  and 
ripening.  In  all  created  things,  in  all  things 
not  complete  in  themselves,  in  all  save  God, 
in  whom  there  is  no  development  possible,  for 
He  is,  as  say  the  schoolmen,  most  pure  act,  in 
whom  there  is  no  unactualized  possibility,  the 
same  law  holds  good.  Development  is  always 
tke  resultant  of  two  factors,  the  one  the  thing 
itself,  the  other  some  external  force  co-opera^ 
ting  with  it,  exciting  it,  and  aiding  it  to  act. 


ORIGIN  OP  GOVERNMENT.  95$ 

Hence  the  prcemotio  physica  of  the  Thomists, 
and  the  prcevenient  and  adjv/vant  grace  of  the 
theologians,  without  which  no  one  can  begin 
the  Christian  life,  and  which  must  needs  be 
supernatural  when  the  end  is  supernatural. 
The  principle  of  life  in  all  orders  is  the  same, 
and  human  activity  no  more  suffices  for  itself 
in  one  order  than  in  another. 

Here  is  the  reason  why  the  savage  tribe 
never  rises  to  a  civilized  state  without  com- 
munion in  some  form  with  a  people  already 
civilized,  and  why  there  is  no  moral  or  intel- 
lectual development  and  progress  without  edu- 
cation and  instruction,  consequently  without 
instructors  and  educators.  Hence  the  value 
of  tradition ;  and  hence,  as  the  first  man  could 
not  instruct  himself.  Christian  theologians,  with 
a  deeper  philosophy  than  is  dreamed  of  by  the 
sciolists  of  the  age,  maintain  that  God  himself 
was  man's  first  teacher,  or  that  he  created 
Adam  a  full-grown  man,  with  all  his  faculties 
developed,  complete,  and  in  full  activity.  Hence, 
too,  the  heathen  mythologies,  which  alwaya^ 
contain  some  elements  of  truth,  however  they 
may  distort,  mutilate,  or  travesty  them,  make 
the  gods  the  first  teachers  of  the  human  race, 
and  ascribe  to  th-eir  instruction  even  the  most 
simple   and   ordinary   arts   of   every-day  life. 


•94  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

The  gods  teach  men  to  plough,  to  plant,  to 
reap,  to  work  in  iron,  to  erect  a  shelter  from 
the  storm,  and  to  build  a  fire  to  warm  them 
and  to  cook  their  food.  The  common  sense, 
as  well  as  the  common  traditions  of  mankind, 
refuses  to  accept  the  doctrine  that  men  are  de- 
veloped without  foreign  aid,  or  progressive 
without  divine  assistance.  Nature  of  herself 
vcan  no  more  develop  government  than  it  can 
language.  There  can  be  no  language  without 
society,  and  no  society  without  language. 
There  can  be  no  government  without  society, 
and  no  society  without  government  of  some 
sort. 

But  even  if  nature  could  spontaneously  develop 
herself,  she  could  never  develop  an  institution 
that  has  the  right  to  govern,  for  she  has  not  her- 
self that  right.  Nature  is  not  God,  has  not  cre- 
ated us,  therefore  has  not  the  right  of  property 
in  us.  She  is  not  and  cannot  be  our  sovereign. 
We  belong  not  to  her, nor  does  she  belong  to  her- 
self, for  she  is  herself  creature,  and  belongs  to 
her  Creator.  Not  being  in  herself  sovereign, 
she  cannot  develop  the  right  to  govern,  nor  can 
fihe  develop  government  as  a  fact,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  its  right,  for  goveniment,  whether  we 
•speak  of  it  as  fact  or  as  authority,  is  distinct 
.^m  that  which  is  governed ;  but  natural  de- 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  96 

Telopments  are  nature,  and  indistinguishable 
from  her.  The  governor  and  the  governed,  the 
restrainer  and  the  restrained,  can  never  as  such 
be  identical.  Self-government,  taken  strictly, 
is  a  contradiction  in  teims.  When  an  indi- 
vidual is  said  to  govern  himself,  he  is  never 
understood  to  govern  himself  in  the  sense  in 
which  he  is  governed.  He  by  his  reason  and 
will  governs  or  restrains  his  appetites  and  pas- 
sions. It  is  man  as  spirit  governing  man  as 
flesh,  the  spiritual  mind  governing  the  carnal 
mind, 

Natural  developments  cannot  in  all  cases  be 
€ven  allowed  to  take  their  own  course  without 
injury  to  nature  herself.  "  Follow.nature  "  is  an 
unsafe  maxim,  if  it  means,  leave  nature  to  de- 
velop herself  as  she  will,  and  follow  thy  natural 
inclinations.  Nature  is  good,  but  inclinations 
are  frequently  bad.  All  oui'  appetites  and  pas- 
sions are  given  us  for  good,  for  a  purpose  useful 
and  necessary  to  individual  and  social  life,  but 
they  become  morbid  and  injurious  if  indulged 
without  restraint.  Each  has  its  special  object, 
and  naturally  seeks  it  exclusively,  and  thus 
generates  discord  and  war  in  the  individual, 
which  immediately  find  expression  in  society, 
and  also  in  the  state,  if  the  state  be  a  simple 
iDatural  development.     .The  Christian   maxim, 


96  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLK3. 

Deny  thyself,  is  far  better  ttan  the  Epicurean 
maxim,  Eujoy  thyself,  for  there  is  no  real  en- 
joyment without  self-denial.  There  is  deep 
philosophy  in  Christian  asceticism,  as  the  Posi- 
tivists  themselves  are  aware,  and  even  insist. 
But  Christian  asceticism  aims  not  to  destroy  na- 
ture, as  voluptuaries  pretend,  but  to  regulate, 
direct,  and  restrain  its  abnormal  developments 
for  its  own  good.  It  forces  nature  in  her  devel- 
opments to  submit  to  a  law  which  is  not  in 
her,  but  above  her.  The  Posit ivists  pretend 
that  this  asceticism  is  itself  a  natural  develop- 
ment, but  that  cannot  be  a  natural  development 
which  directs,  controls,  and  restrains  natural 
development. 

The  Positivists  confound  nature  at  one  time 
with  the  law  of  natui'e,  and  at  another  the  law 
of  nature  with  nature  herself,  and  take  what  is 
called  the  natural  law  to  be  a  natural  develop- 
ment. Here  is  their  mistake,  as  it  is  the  mis- 
take of  all  who  accept  naturalistic  theories. 
Society,  no  doubt,  is  authorized  by  the  law  of 
nature  to  institute  and  maintain  government. 
But  the  law  of  nature  is  not  a  natural  develop- 
ment, nor  is  it  in  nature,  or  any  part  of  nature.  It 
is  not  a  natural  force  which  operates  in  nature, 
and  which  is  the  developing  principle  of  nature* 
Do  they  say  reason  is.  natural,  and  the  law  of 


OBIGIN  OP  GOVERNMENT.  97 

nature  is  only  reason  ?  This  is  not  precisely  the 
fact.  The  natural  law  is  law  proper,  and  is 
reason  only  in  the  sense  that  reason  includes 
both  intellect  and  will,  and  nobody  can  pretend 
that  nature  in  her  spontaneous  developments 
acts  from  intelligence  and  volition.  Reason, 
as  the  faculty  of  knowing,  is  subjective  and  nat- 
ural ;  but  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  coincident 
with  the  natural  law,  it  is  neither  subjective 
nor  natural,  but  objective  and  divine,  and  is 
God  affirming  himself  and  promulgating  his 
law  to  his  creature,  man.  It  is,  at  least,  an  im- 
mediate participation  of  the  divine  light,  by 
which  He  reveals  himself  and  His  will  to  the 
human  understanding,  and  is  not  natural,  but 
supernatural,  in  the  sense  that  God  himself  is 
supernatural.  This  is  wherefore  reason  is  law, 
and  every  man  is  bound  to  submit  or  conform 
to  reason. 

That  legitimate  governments  are  instituted 
under  the  natural  law  is  frankly  conceded,  but 
this  is  by  no  means  the  concession  of  govern- 
ment as  a  natural  development.  The  reason 
and  will  of  which  the  natural  law  is  the  ex- 
pression are  the  reason  and  will  of  God.  The 
natural  law  is  the  divine  law  as  much  as  the 
revealed  law  itself,  and  equally  obligatory.  It 
is  not  a  natural  force  developing  itself  in  nsr 


98  "  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

ture,  like  the  law  of  generation,  for  instance,  and 
therefore  proceeding  from  God  as  first  cause, 
but  it  proceeds  from  God  as  final  cause,  and  is, 
therefore,  theological,  and  strictly  a  moral  law 
founding  moral  rights  and  duties.  Of  course, 
all  morality  and  all  legitimate  government  rest 
on  this  law,  or,  if  you  will,  originate  in  it.  But 
not  therefore  in  nature,  but  in  the  Author  of  na- 
ture. The  authority  is  not  the  authority  of  na- 
ture,  but  of  Him  who  holds  nature  in  the  hol- 
low of  His  hand. 

V.  In  the  seventeenth  century  a  class  of  poli- 
tical writers  who  very  well  understood  that  no 
creature,  no  man,  no  number  of  men,  not  even 
nature  herself,  can  be  inherently  sovereign, 
defended  the  opinion  that  governments  are 
founded,  constituted,  and  clothed  with  their 
authority  by  the  direct  and  express  appoint- 
ment of  God  himself.  They  denied  that  rulers 
hold  their  power  from  the  nation ;  that,  however 
oppressive  may  be  their  rule,  that  they  are  jus- 
ticiable by  any  human  tribunal,  or  that  power, 
except  by  the  direct  judgment  of  God,  is 
amissible.  Their  doctrine  is  known  in  histoiy 
as  the  doctrine  of  "  the  divine  right  of  kings, 
and  passive  obedience."  All  power,  says  St. 
Paul,  is  from  God,  and  the  powers  that  be  are 
ordained  of  God,  and  to  resist  them  is  to  resist 


OEIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  99 

tW  ordination  of  God.      They  must  be  obeyed 
for  conscience'  sake. 

It  would,  perhaps,  be  rash  to  say  that  this 
doctrine  had  never  been  broached  before  the 
seventeenth  century,  but  it   received   in   that 
century,  and  chiefly  in  England,  its  fullest  and 
most  systematic  developments.      It  was  patron- 
ized by  the  Anglican  divines,  asserted  by  James 
L  of  England,  and  lost  the  Stuarts  the  crown 
of  three  kingdoms.     It   crossed   the    Channel, 
into  France,  where  it  found  a  few  hesitating 
and   stammering   defenders    among   Catholics, 
under  Louis  XIV.,  but  it  has  never  been  very 
generally  held,  though  it  has  had  able  and  zeal- 
ous supporters.     In  England  it  was  opposed  by 
all  the  Presbyterians,  Puritans,  Independents,  • 
and  Republicans,  and  was  forgotten  or  aban- 
doned by  the  Anglican  divines  themselves  in 
the  Revolution  of  1688,  that  expelled  James  II. 
and  crowned  William  and  Mary.     It  was  ably 
refuted   by   the   Jesuit   Suarez    in   his   reply 
to    a   Hemonstrance  for    the    Divine    Might 
of  Kings  by  the   James   I. ;   and   a  Spanish 
monk  who  had  asserted  it  in  Madrid,  under 
Philip  n.,  was  compelled  by  the  Inquisition  to 
retract  it  publicly  in  the  place  where  he  had 
asserted  it.      All  republicans  reject  it,  and  the 
Church  has  never  sanctioned  it.    The  Sovereign 


100  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

Pontiffs  have  claimed  and  exercised  the  right  to 
deprive  princes  of  their  principality,  and  to  ab- 
solve their  subjects  from  the  oath  of  fidelity. 
Whether  the  Popes  rightly  claimed  and  exer- 
cised that  power  is  not  now  the  question ;  but 
their  having  claimed  and  exercised  it  proves 
that  the  Church   does  not  admit  the  inamissi- 
bility  of  power  and  passive  obedience ;  for  the 
action  of  the  Pope  was  judicial,  not  legislative. 
The  Pope  has  never  claimed  the  right  to  depose 
a  prince  till  by  his  own  act  he  has,  under  the 
moral  law  or  the  constitution  of  his  state,  for- 
feited his  power,  nor  to  absolve  subjects  from 
their  allegiance-  till  their  oath,  according  to  its 
true  intent  and  meaning,  has  ceased  to  bind. 
'  If  the  Church  has  always    asserted   with  the 
Apostle  there  is  no  power  but  from  God — non 
est  potestas  nisi  a  Deo — she  has  always  through 
her  doctors  maintained  that  it  is  a  trust  to  be 
exercised  for  the  public  good,  and  is  forfeited 
when  persistently  exercised  in  a  contrary  sense. 
St,  Augustine,  St.  Thomas,  and  Suarez  all  main- 
tain that  unjust  laws  are  violences  rather  than 
laws,  and  do  not  oblige,  except  in  charity  or  pru- 
dence, and  that  the  republic  may  change  its 
magistrates,  and  even  its  constitution,  if  it  sees 
proper  to  do  so. 

That  God,  as  universal  Creator,  is  Sovereign 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  101 

Lord  ar.d  proprietor  of  all  created  things  or  ex- 
istences, visible  or  invisible,  is  certain  ;  for  the 
maker  has  the  absolute  right  to  the  thing 
made ;  it  is  his,  and  he  may  do  with  it  as  he 
will.  As  he  is  sole  creator,  he  alone  hath  do- 
minion; and  as  he  is  absolute  creator,  he  has 
absolute  dominion  over  all  the  things  which  he 
has  made.  The  guaranty  against  oppression 
is  his  own  essential  nature,  is  in  the  plenitude 
of  his  own  being,  which  is  the  plenitude  of. 
wisdom  and  goodness.  He  cannot  contradict 
himself,  be  other  than  he  is,  or  act  otherwise 
than  according  to  his  own  essential  nature.  As 
he  is,  in  his  own  eternal  and  immutable  essence, 
supreme  reason  and  supreme  good,,  his  dominion 
must  always  in  its  exercise  be  supremely 
good  and  supremely  reasonable,  therefore  su- 
premely just  and  equitable.  From  him  cer- 
tainly is  all  power ;  he  is  unquestionably  King 
of  kings,  and  Lord  of  lords.  By  him  kings 
reign  and  magistrates  decree  just  things.  He 
may,  at  his  will,  set  up  or  pull  down  kings. 
Tear  or  overwhelm  empires,  foster  the  infant 
colony,  and  make  desolate  the  populous  city. 
All  this  is  unquestionably  true,  and  a  simple 
dictate  of  reason  common  to  all  men.  But  in 
what  sense  is  it  tnie  ?  Is  it  true  in  a  supernat- 
ural sense  ?     Or  is   it  true  only  in  the  sense 


^ 


102  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

that  it  is  true  that  by  him  we  breathe,  perforn* 
any  or  all  of  our  natural  functions,  and  in  him 
live,  and  move,  and  have  our  being  ? 

.  Viewed  in  their  first  cause,  all  things  are 
the  immediate  creation  of  God,  and  are  super- 
natural, and  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  first 
cause  the  Scriptures  usually  speak,  for  the 
great  purpose  and  paramount  object  of  the 
sacred  writers,  as  of  religion  itself,  is  to  make 
prominent  the  fact  that  God  is  universal  creator, 
and  supreme  governor,  and  therefore  the  first 
and  final  cause  of  all  things.  But  God  creates 
second  causes,  or  substantial  existences,  capable 
themselves  of  acting  and  producing  effects  in  a 
secondary  sense,  and  hence  he  is  said  to  be 
caiisa  causarum^  cause  of  causes.  What  is 
done  by  these  second  causes  or  creatures  is  done 
eminently  by  him,  for  they  exist  only  by  his 
creative  act,  and  produce  only  by  virtue  of  his 
active  presence,  or  effective  concurrence.  What 
he  does  through  them  or  through  their  agency 
is  done  by  him,  not  immediately,  but  mediately, 
and  is  said  to  be  done  naturally,  as  what  he 
does  immediately  is  said  to  be  done  supernatu- 
rally.  Natural  is  what  God  does  through  sec- 
ond causes,  which  he  creates ;  supernatural  is 
that  which  he  does  by  himself  alone,  without 
their  intervention  or  agency.     Sovereignty,  or 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  103 

the  right  to  govern,  is  in  him,  and  he  may  at 
his  will  delegate  it  to  men  either  mediately  or 
immediately,  by  a  direct  and  express  appoint- 
ment, or  mediately  through  nature.  In  the 
absence  of  all  facts  proving  its  delegation  direct 
and  express,  it  must  be  assumed  to  be  mediate, 
through  second  causes.  The  natural  is  always 
to  be  presumed,  and  the  supernatural  is  to  be 
admitted  only  on  conclusive  proo£ 

The  people  of  Israel  had  a  supernatural  voca 
tion,  and  they  received  their  law,  embracing 
their  religious  and  civil  constitution  and  their 
ritual  directly  from  God  at  the  hand  of 
Moses,  and  various  individuals  from  time  to 
time  appear  to  have  been  specially  called  to  be 
their  judges,  rulers,  or  kings.  Saul  was  so 
called,  and  so  was  David.  David  and  his  line- 
appear,  also,  to  have  been  called  not  only  to 
supplant  Saul  and  his  line,  but  to  have  been 
supernaturally  invested  with  the  kingdom  for- 
ever; but  it  does  not  appear  that  the  royal 
power  with  which  David  and  his  line  were  in- 
vested was  inamissible.  They  lost  it  in  the 
Babylonish  captivity,  and  never  afterwards  re- 
covered it.  The  Asmonean  princes  were  of 
another  line,  and  when  our  Lord  came  the 
sceptre  was  in  the  hands  of  Herod,  an  Idumean 
or  Edomite.     The  promise  made  to  David  and 


104  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

Lis  house  is  generally  held  by  Christian  com- 
mentators  to  have  received  its  fulfilment  in  the 
everlasting  spiritual  royalty  of  the  Messiah, 
sprung  through  Mary  from  David's  line. 

The  Christian  Church  is  supernaturally  con- 
stituted and  supernaturally  governed,  but  tlie 
persons  selected  to  exercise  powers  supernatu- 
rally defined,  from  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  down  to 
the  humblest  parish  priest  are  selected  and  in- 
ducted into  office  through  human  agency.  The 
Gentiles  very  generally  claimed  to  have  received 
their  laws  from  the  gods,  but  it  does  not  ap- 
pear, save  in  exceptional  cases,  that  they  claimed 
that  their  princes  were  designated  and  held 
their  powers  by  the  direct  and  express  appoint- 
ment of  the  god.  Save  in  the  case  of  the  Jews, 
and  that  of  the  Church,  there  is  no  evidence 
that  any  particular  government  exists  or  ever 
has  existed  by  direct  or  express  appointment, 
or  othei'wise  than  by  the  action  of  the  Creator 
through  second  causes,  or  what  is  called  his  or- 
dinary providence.  Except  David  and  his  line, 
there  is  no  evidence  of  the  express  grant  by  the 
Divine  Sovereign  to  any  individual  or  family, 
class  or  caste  of  the  government  of  any  nation  or 
country.  Even  those  Christian  princes  who 
professed  to  reign  "  by  the  grace  of  God,"  never 
claimed  that  they  received  their  principalities 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  106 

from  God  otherwise  than  through  his  ordinary 
providence,  and  meant  by  it  little  more  than 
an  acknowledgment  of  their  dependence  on 
him,  their  obligation  to  use  their  power  accord- 
ing to  his  law,  and  their  accountability  to  him 
for  the  use  they  make  of  it. 

The  doctrine  is  not  favorable  to  human  lib- 
erty, for  it  recognizes  no  rights  of  man  in  face 
of  civil  society.  It  consecrates  tyranny,  and 
makes  God  the  accomplice  of  the  tyrant,  if  we 
suppose  all  governments  have  actually  existed 
by  his  express  appointment. .  It  puts  the  king 
in  the  place  of  God,  and  requires  us  to  worship 
in  him  the  immediate  representative  of  the  Di- 
vine Being.  P  ower  is  irresponsible  and  inamis- 
sible,  and  however  it  may  be  abused,  or  how- 
ever corrupt  and  oppressive  may  be  its  exercise, 
there  is  no  human  redress.  Resistance  to 
power  is  resistance  to  God.  There  is  nothing 
for  the  people  but  passive  obedience  and  unre- 
served submission.  The  doctrine,  in  fact,  de- 
nies all  Jiuman  government,  and  allows  the 
people  no  voice  in  the  management  of  their 
own  affairs,  and  gives  no  place  for  human  activ- 
ity. It  stands  opposed  to  all  republicanism, 
and  makes  power  an  hereditary  and  indefeasible 
right,  not  a  trust  which  he  who  holds  it  may 
forfeit,  and  of  which  he  may  be  deprived  if  he 
abuses  it. 


106  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 


CHAPTEE  VI. 

ORIGIN  OF  GOVFENMUNT—Oo^oLVDED. 

VI.  The  theory  which  derives  the  light  of 
goverDment  from  the  direct  and  express  ap- 
pointment of  God  is  sometimes  modified  so  as 
to  mean  that  civil  authority  is  derived  from 
God  through  the  spiritual  authority.  The 
patriarch  combined  in  his  pei'son  both  authori- 
ties, and  wag  in  his  own  household  both  priest 
and  king,  and  so  originally  was  in  his  own 
tribe  the  chief,  and  in  his  kingdom  the  king. 
When  the  two  offices  became  separated  is  not 
known.  In  the  time  of  Abraham  thev  were 
still  united.  Melchisedech,  king  of  Salem,  was 
both  priest  and  king,  and  the  earliest  historical 
records  of  kings  present  them  as  offering  sacri- 
fices. Even  the  Roman  emperor  was  Pontifex 
Maximus  as  well  as  Imperator,  but  that  was 
so  not  because  the  two  offices  were  held  to  be  in- 
separable, but  because  they  were  both  conferred 
on  the  same  person  by  the  republic.  In  Egypt, 
in  the  time  of  Moses,  the  royal  authority  and 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  lOT 

the  priestly  were  separated,  and  held  by  differ* 
ent  persons.  Moses,  in  his  legislation  for  hi& 
nation,  separated  them,  and  instituted  a  sacer- 
dotal order  or  caste.  The  heads  of  tribes  and 
the  heads  of  families  are,  under  his  law,, 
princes,  but  not  priests,  and  the  priesthood  is 
conferred  on  and  restricted  to  his  own  tribe  of 
Levi,  and  more  especially  the  family  of  his  own. 
brpther  Aaran. 

The  priestly  office  by  its  own  nature  is  su- 
perior to  the  kingly,  and  in  all  primitive  nations 
with  a  separate  organized  priesthood,  whether 
a  true  priesthood  or  a  corrupt,  the  priest  is  held 
to  be  above  the  king,  elects  or  establishes  the 
law  by  which  is  selected  the  temporal  chief, 
and  inducts  him  into  his  office,  as  if  he  received 
his  authority  from  God  through  the  priesthood. 
The  Christian  priesthood  is  not  a  caste,  and  is 
transmitted  by  the  election  of  grace,  not  as 
with  the  Israelites  and  all  sacerdotal  nations, 
by  natural  generation.  Like  Him  whose  priests- 
they  are,  Christian  priests  are  priests  after  the- 
order  of  Melchisedech,  who  was  without  priest- 
ly descent,  without  father  or  mother  of  the 
priestly  line.  But  in  being  priests  after  the- 
order  of  Melchisedech,  they  are  both  priests 
and  kings,  as  Melchisedech  was,  and  as  was 
our  Lord  himself,  to  whom  was  given  by  hi* 


108  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

Father  all  power  in  heaven  and  in  earth.  The 
Pope,  or  Supreme  Pontiff,  is  the  vicar  of  our 
Lord  on  earth,  his  representative — the  repre- 
sentative not  only  of  hira  who  is  our  invisible 
High-Priest,  but  of  him  who  is  King  of  kings 
and  Lord  of  lords,  therefore  of  both  the  priestly 
and  the  kingly  power.  Consequently,  no  one 
can  have  any  mission  to  govern  in  the  state  any 
more  than  in  the  church,  unless  "derived  from 
God  directly  or  indirectly  through  the  Pope  or 
Supreme  Pontiff.  Many  theologians  and  canon- 
ists in  the  Middle  Ages  so  held,  and  a  few  per- 
haps hold  so  still.  The  bulls  and  briefs  of 
several  Popes,  as  Gregory  VII.,  Innocent  HI., 
Gregory  IX.,  Innocent  IV.,  and  Boniface  VIII., 
have  the  appearance  of  favoring  it. 

At  one  period  the  greater  part  of  the  mediae- 
val kingdoms  and  principalities  were  fiefs  of  the 
Holy  See,  and  recognized  the  Holy  Father  as 
their  suzerain.  The  Pope  revived  the  imperial 
dignity  in  the  person  of  Charlemagne,  and  none 
could  claim  that  dignity  in  the  Western  world 
unless  elected  and  crowned  by  him,  that  is,  un  , 
less  elected  directly  by  the  Pope  or  by  electors 
designated  by  him,  and  acting  under  his  author- 
ity. There  can  be  no  question  that  the  spir- 
itual is  superior  to  the  temporal,  and  that  the 
temporal  is  bound  in  the  veiy  nature  of  things 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  10i> 

to  conform  to  the  spiritual,  and  any  law  enacted 
by  the  civil  power  in  contravention  of  the  law 
of  God  is  null  and  void  from  the  beginning. 
This  is  what  Mr.  Seward  meant  by  the  higher  law, 
■  a  law  higher  even  than  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States.  Supposing  this  higher  law,  and 
supposing  that  kings  and  princes  hold  from  God 
through  the  spiritual  society,  it  is  very  evident 
that  the  chief  of  that  society  would  have  the 
right  to  deprive  them,  and  to  absolve  their  sub- 
jects, as  on  several  occasions  he  actually  has 
done. 

But  this  theory  has  never  been  a  dogma  of 
the  Church,  nor,  to  any  great  extent,  except  for 
a  brief  period,  maintained  by  theologians  or 
canonists.  The  Pope  conferred  the  imperial 
dignity  on  Charlemagne  and  his  successors,  but 
not  the  civil  power,  at  least  out  of  the  Pope^s 
own  temporal  dominions.  The  emperor  of  Ger- 
many was  at  first  elected  by  the  Pope,  and 
afterwards  by  hereditary  electors  designated  or 
accepted  by  him,  but  the  king  of  the  Germans 
with  the  full  royal  authority  could  be  elected 
and  enthroned  without  the  papal  intervention 
or  permission.  The  suzerainty  of  the  Holy  See 
over  Italy,  Naples,  Aragon,  Muscovy,  England, 
and  other  European  states,  was  by  virtue  of 
feudal  relations,  not  by  virtue  of  the  spiritual  au- 


110  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

•thoritj  of  the  Holy  See  or  the  vicarship  of  the 
Holy  Father.  The  right  to  govern  under  feu- 
<3alism  was  simply  an  estate,  or  property ;  and 
as  the  church  could  acquire  and  hold  property, 
nothing  prevented  her  holding  fiefs,  or  her 
chief  from  being  suzerain.  The  expressions  in 
the  papal  briefs  and  bulls,  taken  in  connection 
with  the  special  relations  existing  between  the 
Pope  and  emperor  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  his 
relations  with  other  states  as  their  feudal  sover- 
eign, explained  by  the  controversies  concerning 
rights  growing  out  of  these  relations,  will  be  found 
to  give  no  countenance  to  the  theory  in  question. 
These  relations  really  existed,  and  they  gave 
the  Pope  certain  temporal  rights  in  certain 
states,  even  the  temporal  supremacy,  as  he  has 
still  in  what  is  left  him  of  the  States  of  the 
Church;  but  they  were  exceptional  or  accidental 
relations,  not  the  universal  and  essential  rela- 
tions between  the  church  and  the  state.  The 
rights  that  grew  out  of  these  relations  were 
real  rights,  sacred  and  inviolable,  but  only 
where  and  while  the  relations  subsisted.  They, 
for  the  most  part,  grew  out  of  the  feudal  sys- 
tem introduced  into  the  Roman  empire  by  its 
barbarian  conquerors,  and  necessarily  ceased 
with  the  political  order  in  which  they  origi- 
nated.    Undoubtedly  the   church  consecrated 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  HI 

civil  rulers,  but  this  did  not  imply  that  they 
received  their  power  or  right  to  govern  from 
<Tod  through  her;  but  implied  that  their  per- 
sons were  sacred,  and  that  violence  to  them 
would  be  sacrilege ;  that  they  held  the  Chris- 
tian faith,  and  acknowledged  themselves  bound 
to  protect  it,  and  to  govern  their  subjects  justly, 
according  to  the  law  of  God. 

The  church,  moreover,  has  always  recognized 
the  distinction  of  the  two  powers,  and  although 
the  Pope  owes  to  the  fact  that  he  is  chief  of  the 
spiritual  society,  his  temporal  principality,  no 
theologian  or  canonist  of  the  slightest  respecta- 
bility would  argue  that  he  derives  his  rights 
as  temporal  sovereign  from  his  rights  as  pontiff 
His  rights  as  pontiff  depend  on  the  express 
appointment  of  God ;  his  rights  as  temporal 
prince  are  derived  from  the  same  source  from 
which  other  princes  derive  their  rights,  and  are 
held  by  the  same  tenure.  Hence  canonists  have 
maintained  that  the  subjects  of  other  states 
may  even  engage  in  war  with  the  Pope  as  prince, 
without  breach  of  their  fidelity  to  him  as  pon- 
tiff or  supreme  visible  head  of  the  church. 

The  church  not  only  distinguishes  between 
the  two  powers,  but  recognizes  as  legitimate, 
governments  that  manifestly  do  not  derive  from 
■God  through  her.     St.  Paul  enjoins  obedience 


112  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

to  the  Roman  emperors  for  conscience'  sake,  and 
the  church  teaches  that  infidels  and  heretics 
may  have  legitimate  government ;  and  if  she  has 
ever  denied  the  right  of  any  infidel  or  heretical 
prince,  it  has  been  on  the  ground  that  the  con- 
stitution and  laws  of  his  principality  require 
him  to  profess  and  protect  the  Catholic  taith. 
She  tolerates  resistance  in  a  non-Catholic 
state  no  more  than  in  a  Catholic  state  to  the 
prince ;  and  if  she  has  not  condemned  and  cut 
off  from  her  communion  the  Catholics  who  in 
our  struggle  have  joined  the  Secessionists  and 
fought  in  their  ranks  against  the  United  States, 
it  is  because  the  prevalence  of  the  doctrine  of 
State  sovereignty  has  seemed  to  leave  a  reason- 
able doubt  whether  they  were  really  rebels 
fighting  against  their  legitimate  sovereign  or 
not. 

No  doubt,  as  the  authority  of  the  church  is 
derived  immediately  from  God  in  a  supernatural 
manner,  and  as  she  holds  that  the  state  derives 
its  authority  only  mediately  from  him,  in  a 
natural  mode,  she  asserts  the  superiority  of  her 
authority,  and  that,  in  case  of  conflict  between 
the  two  powers,  the  civil  must  yield.  But  this 
is  only  saying  that  supernatural  is  above  natu- 
ral. But — and  this  is  the  important  point — 
she  does  not  teach,  nor  permit  the  faithful  to 


ORIGIN  OP  GOVERNMENT.  113 

hold,  that  the  supernatural  abrogates  the  natu- 
ral, or  in  any  way  supersedes  it.  Grace,  say 
the  theologians,  supposes  nature,  gratia  supponit 
naturam.  The  church  in  the  matter  of  govern- 
ment accepts  the  natural,  aids  it,  elevates  it,  and 
is  its  firmest  support. 

VII.  St.  Augustine,  St.  Gregoiy  Magnus,  St. 
Thomas,  Bellarmin,  Suarez,  and  the  theologi- 
ans generally,  hold  that  princes  derive  their 
power  from  God  through  the  people,  or  that 
the  people,  though  not  the  source,  are  the  me- 
dium of  all  political  authority,  and  therefore 
rulers  are  accountable  for  the  use  they  make  of 
their  power  to  both  God  and  the  people. 

This  doctrine  ao^rees  with  the  democratic 
theory  in  vesting  sovereignty  in  the  people,  in- 
stead of  the  king  or  the  nobility,  a  particular 
individual,  family,  class,  or  caste ;  and  differs 
from  it,  as  democracy  is  commonly  explained,  in 
understanding  by  the  people,  the  people  collec- 
tively, not  individually — ^the  organic  people,  or 
people  fixed  to  a  given  territory,  not  the  people 
as  a  mere  population — the  people  in  the  repub- 
lican sense  of  the  word  nation,  not  in  the  barbaric 
or  despotic  sense;  and  in  deriving  the  sovereignty 
from  God,  from  whom  is  all  power,  and  except 
from  whom  there  is  and  can  be  no  power,  in- 

9 


114  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

stead  of  asserting  it  as  the  underived  and  inde- 
feasible right  of  the  people  in  their  "  own  na- 
tive right  and  might."  The  people  not  being 
God,  and  being  only  what  philosophers  call  a 
second  cause,  they  ai*e  and  can  be  sovereign 
only  in  a  secondary  and  relative  sense.  It  as- 
serts the  divine  origin  of  power,  while  democ- 
racy asserts  its  human  origin.  But  as,  under 
the  law  of  nature,  all  men  are  equal,  or  have 
equal  rights  as  men,  one  man  has  and  can  have 
in  himself  no  right  to  govern  another ;  and  as 
man  is  never  absolutely  his  own,  but  always  and 
everywhere  belongs  to  his  Creator,  it  is  clear 
that  no  government  originating  in  humanity 
alone  can  be  a  legitimate  government.  Every 
such  government  is  founded  on  the  assumption 
that  man  is  God,  which  is  a  great  mistake — is, 
in  fact,  tlie  fundamental  sophism  which  under- 
lies eveiy  error  and  every  sin. 

The  divine  origin  of  government,  in  the 
sense  asserted  by  Christian  theologians,  is  never 
found  distinctly  set  forth  in  the  political  wri- 
tings of  the  ancient  Greek  and  Roman  wiiters. 
Gentile  philosophy  had  lost  the  tradition  of 
creation,  as  some  modern  philosophers,  in  so- 
called  Christian  nations,  are  fast  losing  it,  and 
were  as  unable  to  explain  the  origin  of  govern- 
ment as  they  were  the  origin  of  man  himself 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  115 

Even  Plato,  tlie  profoundest  of  all  ancient  plii- 
losopliers,  and  the  most  faithful  to  the  tradi- 
tionary wisdom  of  the  race,  lacks  the  concep- 
tion of  creation,  and  never  gets  -above  that  of 
generation  and  formation.  Things  are  produced 
by  the  Divine  Being  impressing  his  own  ideas, 
eternal  in  his  own  mind,  on  a  pre-existing  mat- 
ter, as  a  seal  on  wax.  Aristotle  teaches  sub- 
stantially the  same  doctrine.  Things  eternally 
exist  as  matter  and  form,  and  all  the  Divine 
Intelligence  does,  is  to  unite  the  form  to  the 
matter,  and  change  it,  as  the  schoolmen  say, 
from  materia  informis  to  materia  forma;t-a. 
Even  the  Christian  Platonists  and  Peripatetics 
never  as  philosophers-  assert  creation;  they 
assert  it,  indeed,  but  as  theologians,  as  a  fact  of 
revelation,  not  as  a  fact  of  science ;  and  hence  it 
is  that  their  theology  and  their  philosophy 
never  thoroughly  harmonize,  or  at  least  are  not 
shown  to  harmonize  throughout. 

Speaking  generally,  the  ancient  Gentile  phi- 
losophers were  pantheists,  and  represented  the 
universe  either  as  God  or  as  an  emanation 
from  God.  They  had  no  proper  conception  of 
Providence,  or  the  action  of  God  in  nature 
through  natural  agencies,  or  as  modern  physi- 
cists say,  natural  laws.  If  they  recognized  the 
action  of  divinity  at  all,  it  was  a  supernatural 


116  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

or  miraculous  intervention  of  some  god  They 
saw  no  divine  intervention  in  any  thing  natu- 
rally explicable,  or  explicable  by  natural  laws. 
Having  no  conception  of  the  creative  act,  they 
could  have  none  of  its  immanence,  or  the  active 
and  efficacious  presence  of  the  Creator  in  all  his 
works,  even  in  the  action  of  second  causes 
themselves.  Hence  they  could  not  assert  the^ 
divine  origin  of  government,  or  civil  authority, 
without  supposing  it  supernaturally  founded, 
and  excluding  all  human  and  natural  agencies 
from  its  institution.  Their  writings  may  be 
studied  with  advantage  on  the  constitution  of 
the  state,  on  the  practical  worMngs  of  different 
forms  of  government,  as  well  as  on  the  practical 
administration  of  affairs,  but  never  on  the  origin 
of  the  state,  and  the  real  ground  of  its  authority. 
The  doctrine  is  derived  from  Christian  the- 
ology, which  teaches  that  thei'e  is  no  power  ex- 
cept from  God,  and  enjoins  civil  obedience  as 
a  religious  duty.  Conscience  is  accountable  to 
God  alone,  and  civil  government,  if  it  had  only 
a  natural  or  human  origin,  could  not  bind  it. 
Yet  Christianity  makes  the  civil  law,  within  its 
legitimate  sphere,  as  obligatory  on  conscience 
as  the  divine  law  itself,  and  no  man  is  blame- 
less before  God  who  is  not'  blameless  before  the 
state.     No  man  performs  faithfully  his  religious 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  117 

duties  wIlo  neglects  his  civil  duties,  and  hence 
the  law  of  the  church  allows  no  one  to  retire 
from  the  world  and  enter  a  religious  order,  who 
has  duties  that  bind  him  or  her  to  the  family 
or  the  state ;  though  it  is  possible  that  the  law 
is  not  always  strictly  observed,  and  that  indi- 
viduals sometimes  enter  si  convent  for  the  sake 
of  getting  rid  of  those  duties,  or  the  equally  im- 
portant duty  of  taking  care  of  themselves.  But 
by  asserting  the  divine  origin  of  government, 
Christianity  consecrates  civil  authority,  clothes 
it  with  a  religious  character,  and  makes  civil 
disobedience,  sedition,  insurrection,  rebellion, 
revolution,  civil  turbulence  of  any  sort  or  de- 
gree, sins  against  God  as  well  as  crimes  against 
the  state.  For  the  same  reason  she  makes  usur- 
pation, tyranny,  oppression  of  the  people  by 
oivil  rulers,  offences  against  God  as  well  as 
against  society,  and  cognizable  by  the  spiritual 
authority. 

After  the  establishment  of  the  Christian 
church,  after  its  public  recognition,  and  when 
•conflicting  claims  arose  between  the  two  powers 
— the  civil  and  the  ecclesiastical — this  doctrine  of 
the  divine  origin  of  civil  government  was  abused, 
and  turned  ao-ainst  the  church  with  most  dis- 
astro  us  consequences.  While  the  Roman  Em- 
pire of  the  West  subsisted,  and  even  after  its 


118  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

fall,  so  long  as  the  emperor  of  the  East  asserted 
and  practicaUy  maintained  his  authority  in  the 
Exarchate  of  Ravenna  and  the  Duchy  of  Rome^ 
the  Popes  comported  themselves,  in  civil  mat- 
ters, as  subjects  of  the  Roman  emperor,  and  set 
forth  no  claim  to  temporal  independence.  But 
vrhen  the  emperor  had  lost  Rome,  and  all  his 
possessions  in  Italy,  had  abandoned  them,  or 
been  deprived  of  them  by  the  barbarians,  and 
ceased  to  make  any  efforts  to  recover  them,  the 
Pope  was  no  longer  a  subject,  even  in  civil  mat- 
ters, of  the  emperor,  and  owed  him  no  civil  al- 
legiance. He  became  civilly  independent  of 
the  Roman  Empire,  and  had  only  spiritual  re- 
lations with  it.  To  the  new  powers  that'  sprang 
up  in  Europe  he  appears  never  to  have  acknowl- 
edged any  civil  subjection,  and  uniformly  as- 
serted, in  face  of  them,  his  civil  as  well  as  spirit- 
ual  independence. 

This  civil  independence  the  successors  of 
Charlemagne,  who  pretended  to  be  the  suc- 
cessors of  the  Roman  Emperors  of  the  West,  and 
called  their  empire  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  de- 
nied, and  maintained  that  the  Pope  owed  them 
civil  allegiance,  or  that,  in  temporals,  the  em- 
peror was  the  Pope's  superior.  If,  said  the  em- 
peror, or  his  lawyers  for  him,  the  civil  power  is 
from  God,  as  it  must  be,  since  non  est  potestas 


ORIGIN  OP  GOVERNMENT.  119 

nisi  a  Deo,  the  state  stands  on  the  same  footing 
with  the  church,  and  the  imperial  power  ema* 
nates  from  as  high  a  source  as  the  pontifical. 
The  emperor  is  then  as  supreme  in  temporals  as 
the  Pope  in  spirituals ;  and  as  the  emperor  is 
subject  to  the  Pope  in  spirituals,  so  must  the 
Pope  be  subject  to  the  emperor  in  temporals. 
As,  at  the  time  when  the  dispute  arose,  the  tem- 
poral interests  of  churchmen  were  so  inter- 
woven with  their  spiritual  rights,  the  preten- 
sions of  the  emperor  amounted  practically  to  the 
subjection  in  spirituals  as  well  as  temporals  of 
the  ecclesiastical  authority  to  the  civil,  and  ab- 
sorbed the  church  in  the  state,  the  reasoning 
was  denied,  and  churchmen  replied  :  The  Pope 
represents  the  spiritual  order,  which  is  always 
and  everywhere  supreme  over  the  temporal, 
since  the  spiritual  order  is  the  divine  sover- 
eignty itself.  Always  and  everywhere,  then,  is 
the  Pope  independent  of  the  emperor,  his  su- 
perior, and  to  subject  him  in  any  thing  to  the 
emperor  would  be  as  repugnant  to  reason  as  to 
subject  the  soul  to  the  body,  the  spirit  to  the 
flesh,  heaven  to  earth,  or  God  to  man. 

If  the  universal  supremacy  claimed  for  the 
Pope,  rejoined  the  imperialists,  be  conceded,  the 
state  would  be  absorbed  in  the  church,  the  au- 
tonomy of  civil  society  would  be  destroyed,  and 


120  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

civil  rulers  would  Lave  no  fanctions  but  to  do 
the  bidding  of  the  clergy.  It  would  estab- 
lish a  complete  theocracy,  or,  rather,  clerocracy, 
of  all  possible  governments  the  government 
the  most  odious  to  mankind,  and  the  most  hos- 
tile to  social  progress.  Even  the  Jews  could 
not,  or  would  not,  endure  it,  and  prayed  God 
to  give  them  a  king,  that  they  might  be  like 
other  nations. 

In  the  heat  of  the  controversy  neither  party 
clearly  and  distinctly  perceived  the  true  state 
of  the  question,  and  each  was  partly  right  and 
partly  wrong.  The  imperialists  wanted  room 
for  the  free  activity  of  civil  society,  the  church 
wanted  to  establish  in  that  society  the  su- 
premacy of  the  moral  order,  or  the  law  of  God, 
without  which  governments  can  have  no  sta- 
bility, and  society  no  real  well-being.  The 
real  solution  of  the  difficulty  was  always  to 
be  found  in  the  doctrine  of  the  church  her- 
self, and  had  been  given  time  and  again  by 
her  most  approved  theologians.  The  Pope, 
as  the  visible  head  of  the  spiritual  society,  is, 
no  doubt,  superior  to  the  emperor,  not  pre- 
cisely because  he  represents  a  superior  order, 
but  because  the  church,  of  which  he  is  the  visi- 
ble chief,  is  a  supernatural  institution,  and  holds 
immediately  from  God ;   whereas  civil  society, 


ORIGm  OF  GOVERNMENT.  121 

represented  by  the  emperor,  holds  from  God 
only  mediately,  through  second  causes,  or  the 
people.  Yet,  though  derived  from  God  only 
through  the  people,  civil  authority  still  holds 
from  God,  and  derives  its  right  from  Him 
through  another  channel  than  the  church  or 
spiritual  society,  and,  therefore,  has  a  right,  a 
sacredness,  which  the  church  herself  gives  not, 
and  must  recognize  and  respect.  This  she  her- 
self teaches  in  teaching  that  even  infidels,  as  we 
have  seen,  may  have  legitimate  government, 
and  since,  though  she  interprets  and  applies  the 
law  of  God,  both  natural  and  revealed,  she 
makes  neither. 

Nevertheless,  the  impeiialists  or  the  statists 
insisted  on  their  false  charge  against  the  Pope, 
that  he  labored  to  found  a  purely  theocratic  or 
<jlerocratic  government,  and  finding  themselves 
unable  to  place  the  representative  of  the  civil 
society  on  the  same  level  with  the  i-epresenta- 
tive  of  the  spiritual,  or  to  emancipate  the  state 
from  the  law  of  God  while  they  conceded  the 
divine  origin  or  right  of  government,  they 
sought  to  effect  its  independence  by  asserting 
for  it  only  a  natural  or  purely  human  origin. 
For  nearly  two  centuries  the  most  popular  and 
influential  writers  on  government  have  rejected 
the  divine  origin  and  ground  of  civil  authority, 


122  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

and  excluded  God  from  the  state.  They  have- 
refused  to  look  beyond  second  causes,  and  have 
labored  to  derive  authority  from  man  alone» 
They  have  not  only  separated  the  state  from 
the  church  as  an  external  corporation,  but  from 
God  as  its  internal  lawgiver,  and  by  so  doing 
have  deprived  the  state  of  her  sacredness,  in- 
violability, or  hold  on  the  conscience,  scoffed  at 
loyalty  as  a  superstition,  and  consecrated  not 
civil  authority,  but  what  is  called  "  the  right  of 
insurrectiQn."  Under  their  teaching  the  age 
sympathizes  not  with  authority  in  its  efforts  to 
sustain  itself  and  protect  society,  but  with  those 
who  conspire  against  it — the  insurgents,  rebels, 
revolutionists  seeking  its  destruction.  The  es- 
tablished government  that  seeks  to  enforce 
respect  for  its  legitimate  authority  and  compel 
obedience  to  the  laws,  is  held  to  be  despotic, 
tyrannical,  oppressive,  and  resistance  to  it  to  be 
obedience  to  God,  and  a  wild  howl  rings 
through  Christendom  against  the  prince  that 
will  not  stand  still  and  permit  the  conspirators 
to  cut  his  throat.  There  is  hardly  a  govern- 
ment now  in  the  civilized  world  that  can  sus- 
tain itself  for  a  moment  without  an  armed  force 
sufficient  to  overawe  or  crush  the  party  or 
parties  in  permanent  conspiracy  against  it. 
This  result  is  not  what  was  aimed  at  or  de« 


ORIGIN  OF  GOTERNMENT.  123^ 

sired,  but  it  is  the  logical  or  necessar}  result  of 
the  attempt  to  erect  the  state  on  atheistical 
principles.  Unless  founded  on  the  divine  sov- 
ereignty, authority  can  sustain  itself  only  by 
force,  for  political  atheism  recognizes  no  right 
but  might.  No  doubt  the  politicians  have 
sought  an  atheistical,  or  what  is  the  same  thing, 
a  purely  human,  basis  for  government,  in  order 
to  secure  an  open  field  for  human  freedom  and 
activity,  or  individual  or  social  progress.  The 
end  aimed  at  has  been  good,  laudable  even^ 
but  they  forgot  that  freedom,  is  possible  only 
with  authority  that  protects  it  against  license 
as  well  as  against  despotism,  and  that  there  can 
be  no  progress  where  there  is  nothing  that  is 
not  progressive.  In  civil  society  two  things 
are  necessary — stability  and  movement.  The  hu 
man  is  the  element  of  movement,  for  in  it  are  pos- 
sibilities that  can  be  only  successively  actualized. 
But  the  element  of  stability  can  be  found  only  , 
in  the  divine,  in  God,  in  whom  there  is  no  un- 
actualized  possibility,  who,  therefore,  is  im- 
movable, immutable,  and  eternal.  The  doc- 
trine that  derives  authority  from  God  through- 
the  people,  recognizes  in  the  state  both  of 
these  elements,  and  provides  alike  for  stability 
and  progress. 

This  doctrine  is  not  mere  theory ;  it  simply 


124  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

states  the  real  order  of  things.  It  is  not  telling 
what  ought  to  be,  but  what  is  in  the  real  ordei. 
It  only  asserts  for  civil  government  the  relation 
to  God  which  nature  herself  holds  to  him, 
which  the  entire  universe  holds  to  the  Creator. 
Nothing  in  man,  in  nature,  in  the  universe,  is 
explicable  without  the  creative  act  of  God,  for 
nothing  exists  without  that  act.  That  God  "  in 
the  beofinnino:  created  heaven  and  earth,"  is  the 
first  principle  of  all  science  as  of  all  existences, 
in  politics  no  less  than .  in  theology.  God 
and  creation  comprise  all  that  is  or  exists, 
and  creation,  thous^h  distinsjuishable  from  God 
as  the  act  from  the  actor,  is  inseparable  from 
him,  "  for  in  Him  we  live  and  move  and  have 
our  being."  All  creatures  are  joined  to  him 
by  his  creative  act,  and  exist  only  as  through 
that  act  they  participate  of  his  being.  Through 
that  act  he  is  immanent  as  first  cause  in  all 
,  creatures  and  in  every  act  of  every  creature. 
The  creature  deriving  from  his  creative  act  can 
no  more  continue  to  exist  than  it  could  begin 
to  exist  without  it.  It  is  as  bad  philosophy  as 
theology,  to  suppose  that  God  created  the  uni- 
verse, endowed  it  with  certain  laws  of  devel- 
opment or  activity,  wound  it  up,  gave  it  a  jog, 
«et  it  agoing,  and  then  left  it  to  go  of  itself. 
It  cannot  go  of  itself,  because  it  does  not  exist 


ORIGIN  OP  GOVERNMENT.  126- 

of  itself.  It  did  not  merely  not  begin  to  exist, 
but  it  cannot  continue  to  exist,  without  the 
creative  act.  Old  Epicurus  was  a  sorry  philos- 
opher, or  rather,  no  philosopher  at  all.  Provi- 
dence is  as  necessary  as  creation,  or  rather, 
Providence  is  only  continuous  creation,  the 
creative  act  not  suspended  or  discontinued,  or 
not  passing  over  from  the  creature  and  return- 
ing to  God. 

Through  the  creative  act  man  participates-  of 
God,  and  he  can  continue  to  exist,  act,  or  live  only 
by  participating  through  it  of  his  divine  being. 
There  is,  therefore,  something  of  divinity,  so  to 
speak,  in  every  creature,  and  therefore  it  is 
that  God  is  worshipped  in  his  works  without 
idolatry.  But  he  creates  substantial  existences 
capable  of  acting  as  second  causes.  Hence,  in 
all  living  things  there  is  in  their  life  a  divine 
element  and  a  natural  element ;  in  what  is  called 
human  life,  there  are  the  divine  and  the  human, 
the  divine  as  first  and  the  human  as  second 
cause,  precisely  what  the  doctrine  of  the  great 
Christian  theologians  assert  to  be  the  fact  with 
all  legitimate  or  real  government.  Govern- 
ment cannot  exist  without  the  efficacious  pres- 
ence of  God  any  more  than  man  himself,  and 
men  might  as  well  attempt  to  build  up  a 
world  as  to  attempt  to  found  a  state  without 


126  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

Ood.  A  government  founded  on  atheistical 
principles  were  less  than  a  castle  in  the  air.  It 
would  have  nothing  to  rest  on,  would  not  be 
«veh  so  much  as  "the  baseless  fabric  of  a 
vision,"  and  they  who  imagine  that  they  really 
^o  exclude  God  from  their  politics  deceive  them- 
selves ;  for  they  accept  and  use  principles  which, 
though  they  know  it  not,  are  God.  What  they 
call  abstract  principles,  or  abstract  forms  of 
reason,  without  which  there  were  no  logic,  are 
not  abstract,  but  the  real,  living  God  himsel£ 
Hence  government,  like  man  himself,  partici- 
pates of  the  divine  being,  and,  derived  from  God 
through  the  people,  it  at  the  same  time  partici- 
pates of  human  reason  and  will,  thus  reconciling 
authority  with  freedom,  and  stability  with  prog- 
ress. 

The  people,  holding  their  authority  from  God, 
hold  it  not  as  an  inherent  right,  but  as  a  trust 
from  Him,  and  are  accountable  to  Him  for 
it.  It  is  not  their  own.  If  it  were  their  own 
they  might  do  with  it  as  they  pleased,  and  no 
one  would  have  any  right  to  call  them  to  an  ac- 
count ;  but  holding  it  as  a  trust  from  God,  they 
are  under  his  law,  and  bound  to  exercise  it  as 
that  law  prescribes.  Civil  rulers,  holding  their 
authority  from  God  through  the  people,  are  ac- 
countable for  it  both  to  Him  and  to  them.     If 


OEIGIN  OP  GOVERNMENT.  127 

•they  abuse  it  they  are  justiciable  by  the  people 
and  punishable  by  God  himself.. 

Here  is  the  guaranty  against  tyranny,  oppres- 
sion, or  bad  government,  or  what  in  modem 
tmies  is  called  the  responsibility  of  power.  At 
the  same  time  the  state  is  guarantied  against 
sedition,  insurrection,  rebellion,  revolution,  by 
the  elevation  of  the  civic  virtues  to  the  rank  of 
religious  virtues,  and  making  loyalty  a  matter  of 
<jonscience.  Religion  is  brought  to  the  aid  of 
the  state,  not  indeed  as  a  foreign  auxiliary,  but 
s,s  integral  in  the  political  order  itself.  Religion 
sustains  the  state,  not  because  it  externally  com- 
mands us  to  obey  the  higher  powers,  or  to  be 
submissive  to  the  powers  that  be,  not  because  it 
trains  the  people  to  habits  of  obedience,  and 
teaches  them  to  be  resigned  and  patient  under 
the  grossest  abuses  of  power,  but  because  it  and 
the  state  are  in  the  same  order,  and  insepara- 
ble, though  distinct,  parts  of  one  and  the  same 
whole.  The  church  and  the  state,  as  corpora- 
tions or  external  governing  bodies,  are  indeed  sep 
arate  in  their  spheres,  and  the  church  does  not 
absorb  the  state,  nor  does  the  state  the  church ; 
but  both  are  from  God,  and  both  work  to  the 
same  end,  and  when  each  is  rightly  understood 
there  is  no  antithesis  or  antagonism  between 
them.     Men  serve  God  in  serving  the  state  as 


128  THE  AMERICAN  EEPUBLIO. 

directly  as  in  serving  tlie  churcli.  He  who  dies 
on  the  battle-field  fighting  for  his  country  ranks 
with  him  who  dies  at  the  stake  for  his  faith. 
Civic  vii*tues  are  themselves  religious  virtues, 
or  at  least  virtues  without  which  there  are  no 
religious  virtues,  since  no  man  who  loves  not 
his  brother  does  or  can  love  God. 

The  guaranties  offered  the  state  or  authority 
are  ample,  because  it  has  not  only  conscience, 
moral  sentiment,  interest,  habit,  and  the  vis  in- 
ertia of  the  mass,  but  the  whole  physical  force 
of  the  nation,  at  its  command.  The  individual 
has,  indeed,  only  moral  guaranties  against  the 
abuse  of  power  by  the  sovereign  people,  which 
may  no  doubt  sometimes  prove  insufficient. 
But  moral  guaranties  are  always  better  than 
none,  and  there  are  none  where  the  people  are 
held  to  be  sovereign  in  theii*  own  native  right 
and  might,  organized  or  unorganized,  inside  or 
outside  of  the  constitution,  as  most  modern  dem- 
ocratic theorists  maintain ;  since,  if  so,  the  wiU 
of  the  people,  however  expressed,  is  the  crite- 
rion of  right  and  wrong,  just  and  unjust,  true 
and  false,  is  infallible  and  impeccable,  and  no 
moral  light  can  ever  be  pleaded  against  it; 
they  are  accountable  to  nobody,  and,  let  them 
do  what  they  please,  they  can  do  no  wrong. 
This  would  place  the  individual  at  the  mercy 


ORIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  129 

of  the  state,  and  deprive  him  of  all  right  to 
complain,  however  oppressed  or  cruelly  treated. 
This  would  establish  the  absolute  despotism  of 
tlie  state,  and  deny  every  thing  like  the  natu- 
ral rights  of  man,  or  individual  and  personal 
freedom,  as  has  already  been  shown.  Now  as 
men  do  take  part  in  government,  and  as  men, 
either  individually  or  collectively,  are  neither 
infallible  nor  impeccable,  it  is  never  to  be  ex- 
pected, under  any  possible  constitution  or  form 
of  government,  that  authority  will  always  be 
wisely  and  justly  exercised,  that  wrong  will 
never  be  done,  and  the  rights  of  individuals 
never  in  any  instance  be  infringed ;  but  with 
the  clear  understanding  that  all  power  is  of 
God,  that  the  political  sovereignty  is  vested  in 
the  people  or  the  collective  body,  that  the  civil 
rulers  hold  from  God  through  them  and  are  re- 
sponsible to  Him  through  them,  and  justiciable 
by  them,  there  is  all  the  guaranty  against  the 
abuse  of  power  by  the  nation,  the  political  or 
organic  people,  that  the  nature  of  the  case 
admits.  The  nation  may,  indeed,  err  or  do 
wrong,  but  in  the  way  supposed  you  get  in  the 
government  all  the  available  wisdom  and  vir- 
tue the  nation  has,  and  more  is  never,  under 
any  form  or  constitution  of  government,  prao* 
ticable  or  to  be  expected. 

10 


130  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

It  is  a  maxim  with  constitutional  statesmen, 
that  "  the  king  reigns,  not  governs."  The  pec 
pie,  though  sovereign  under  God,  are  not  the 
government.  The  government  is  in  their  name 
and  by  virtue  of  authority  delegated  from  God 
through  them,  but  they  are  not  it,  are  not  their 
own  ministers.  It  is  only  when  the  people  for- 
get this  and  undertake  to  be  their  own  minis- 
ters and  to  manage  their  own  affairs  immedi- 
ately by  themselves  instead  of  selecting  agents 
to  do  it  for  them,  and  holding  their  agents  to  a 
strict  account  for  their  management,  that  they 
are  likely  to  abuse  their  power  or  to  sanction 
injustice.  The  nation  may  be  misled  or  de- 
ceived for  a  moment  by  demagogues,  those 
popular  courtiers,  but  as  a  rule  it  is  disposed 
to  be  just  and  to  respect  all  natural  rights. 
The  wrong  is  done  by  individuals  who  assume 
to  speak  in  their  name,  to  wield  their  power, 
and  to  be  themselves  the  state.  Vetat,  c^est 
tnoi^  I  am  the  state,  said  Louis  XIV.  of  France, 
and  while  that  was  conceded  the  French  nation 
could  have  in  its  government  no  more  wisdom' 
or  virtue  than  he  possessed,  or  at  least  no  more 
than  he  could  appreciate.  And  under  his  gov- 
ernment France  was  made  responsible  for  many 
deeds  that  the  nation  would  never  have  sanc- 
tioned, if  it  had  been  recognized  as  the  deposi- 


•OBIGIN  OF  GOVERNMENT.  131 

tary  of  tlie  national  sovereignty,  or  as  the  French 
state,  and  answerable  to  God  for  the  use  it 
made  of  political  power,  or  the  conduct  of  its 
government. 

But  be  this  as  it  may,  there  evidently  can  be 
no  physical  force  in  the  nation  to  coerce  the  na- 
tion itself  in  case  it  goes  wrong,  for  if  the  sov- 
ereignty vests  in  the  nation,  only  the  nation  can 
rightly  command  or  authorize  the  employment 
of  force,  and  all  commissions  must  run  in  its 
name.  Written  constitutions  alone  will  avail 
little,  for  they  emanate  from  the  people,  who 
can  disregard  them,  if  they  choose,  and  alter 
or  revoke  them  at  will.  The  reliance  for  the 
wisdom  and  justice  of  the  state  must  after  all 
be  on  moral  guaranties.  In  the  very  nature  of 
the  case  there  are  and  can  be  no  other.  But 
these,  placed  in  a  clear  light,  with  an  intelligent 
and  religious  people,  will  seldom  be  found  in- 
sufficient. Hence  the  necessity  for  the  protec- 
tion, not  of  authority  simply  or  chiefly,  but  of 
individual  rights  and  the  liberty  of  religion  and 
intelligence  in  the  nation,  of  the  general  under- 
standing that  the  nation  holds  its  power  to 
govern  as  a  trust  from  God,  and  that  to  God 
through  the  people  all  civil  rulers  are  strictly 
responsible.  Let  the  mass  of  the  people  in 
any  nation  lapse  into  the  ignorance  and  barba 


132  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

rism  of  atheism,  or  lose  themselves  in  that  su- 
preme sophism  called  pantheism,  the  grand 
error  of  ancient  as  well  as  of  modern  gentilism, 
and  liberty,  social  or  political,  except  that  wild 
kind  of  liberty,  and  perhaps  not  even  that 
should  be  excepted,  which  obtains  among  sav- 
ages, would  be  lost  and  irrecoverable. 

But  after  all,  this  theory  does  not  meet  all 
the  difficulties  of  the  case.  It  derives  sover- 
eignty from  God,  and  thus  assei-ts  the  divine 
origin  of  government  in  the  sense  that  the 
origin  of  nature  is  divine ;  it  derives  it  from 
God  through  the  people,  collectively, .  or  as 
society,  and  therefore  concedes  it  a  natural, 
human,  and  social  element,  which  distinguishes 
it  from  pure  theocracy.  It,  however,  does  not 
explain  how  authority  comes  from  God  to  the 
people.  The  ruler,  king,  prince,  or  emperor, 
holds  from  God  through  the  people,  but  how 
do  the  people  themselves  hold  from  God  ?  Me- 
diately or  immediately?  If  mediately,  what 
is  the  medium  ?  Surely  not  the  people  them- 
selves. The  people  can  no  more  be  the  me- 
dium than  the  principle  of  their  own  sovereign- 
ty. If  immediately,  then  God  governs  in  them 
as  he  does  in  the  church,  and  no  man  is  free 
to  think  or  act  contrary  to  popular  opinion,  or 
in  any  case  to  question  the  wisdom  or  justice 


V,' 


ORIGIN  OF  GOYERNMENT.  133 

of  any  of  the  acts  of  the  state,  which  is  arriv- 
ing at  state  absolutism  by  another  process.  Be- 
sides, this  would  theoretically  exclude  all  hu- 
man or  natural  activity,  all  human  intelligence 
and  free-will  from  the  state,  which  were  to  fall 
into  either  pantheism  or  atheism. 

Yin.  The  right  of  government  to  govern,  or  ^ 
political  authority,  is  derived  by  the  collective 
people  or  society,  from  God  through  the  law  of 
nature.  Rulers  hold  from  God  through  the 
people  or  nation,  and  the  people  or  nation  hold 
from  God  through  the  natural  law.  How  na- 
tions are  founded  or  constituted,  or  a  particular 
people  becomes  a  sovereign  political  people,  in- 
vested with  the  rights  of  society,  will  be  con- 
sidered in  following  chapters.  Here  it  suf- 
fices to  say  that  supposing  a  political  people  or 
nation,  the  sovereignty  vests  in  the  community, 
not  supernaturally,  or  by  an  external  supernat- 
ural appointment,  as  the  clergy  hold  their  au- 
thority, but  by  the  natural  law,  or  law  by  which 
<jod  governs  the  whole  moral  creation. 

They  who  assert  the  origin  of  government  in 
nature  are  right,  so  far  as  they  derive  it  from 
God  through  the  law  of  nature,  and  are  wrong 
only  when  they  understand  by  the  law  of  nature 
the  physical  force  or  forces  of  nature,  which 


134  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

are  not  laws  in  the  primary  and  proper  sense 
of  the  terra.  The  law  of  nature  is  not  the  or- 
der or  rule  of  the  divine  action  in  nature  which 
is  rightfully  called  providence,  but  is,  as  has 
been  said,  law  in  its  proper  and  primary  sense^ 
ordained  by  the  Author  of  nature,  as  its  sover- 
eign and  supreme  Lawgiver,  and  binds  all  of 
his  creatures  who  are  endowed  with  reason  and 
free-will,  and  is  called  natural,  because  promul- 
gated through  the  reason  common  to  all  men^ 
Undoubtedly,  it  was  in  the  first  instance,  to 
the  first  man,  supernaturally  promulgated,  as  it 
is  republished  and  confirmed  by  Christianity, 
as  an  integral  part  of  the  Christian  code  itself. 
Man  needs  even  yet  instruction  in  relation  to- 
matters  lying  within  the  range  of  natural  rea- 
son, or  else  secular  schools,  colleges,  and  univer- 
sities would  be  superfluous,  and  manifestly  the 
instructor  of  the  first  man  could  have  been 
only  the  Creator  himself. 

The  knowledge  of  the  natural  law  has  been 
transmitted  from  Adam  to  us  through  two  chan- 
nels— reason,  which  is  in  every  man,  and  in  im- 
mediate relation  with  the  Creator,  and  the 
traditions  of  the  primitive  instruction  embodied 
in  language  and  what  the  Romans  call  jus  gen- 
tium, or  law  common  to  all  civilized  nations. 
Under  this  law,  whose  prescriptions  are  promul- 


ORIGIN  OP  GOVERNMENl*.  135 

gated  througli  reason  and  embodied  in  universal 
jurisprudence,  nations  are  providentially  consti- 
tuted, and  invested  witli  political  sovereignty; 
and  as  they  are  constituted  under  this  law  and 
hold  from  God  through  it,  it  defines  their  re- 
spective rights  and  powers,  their  limitation  and 
their  extent. 

The  political  sovereignty,  under  the  law  of 
nature,  attaches  to  the  people,  not  individually, 
but  collectively,  as  civil  or  political  society.  It 
is  vested  in  the  political  community  or  nation, 
not  in  an  individual,  or  family,  or  a  class,  be- 
cause, under  the  natural  law,  all  men  are  equal, 
as  they  are  under  the  Christian  law,  and  one 
man  has,  in  his  own  right,  no  authority  over 
another.  The  family  has  in  the  father  a  natural 
chief,  but  political  society  has  no  natural  chief 
or  chiefs.  The  authority  of  the  father  is  do- 
mestic, not  political,  and  ceases  when  his  chil- 
dren have  attained  to  majority,  have  married 
and  become  heads  of  families  themselves,  or 
have  ceased  to  make  part  of  the  paternal  house- 
hold. The  recognition  of  the  authority  of  the 
father  beyond  the  limits  of  his  own  household, 
is,  if  it  ever  occurs,  by  virtue  of  the  ordinance, 
the  consent,  express  or  tacit,  of  the  political 
society.  There  are  no  natural-born  political 
chiefs,   and  wherever  we    find   men   claiming 


136  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

or  acknowledged  to  be  such,  they  are  either 
usurpers,  what  the  Greeks  called  tyromta,  or 
they  are  made  such  by  the  will  or  constitution 
of  the  people  or  the  nation. 

Both  monarchy  and  aristocracy  were,  no 
doubt,  historically  developed  from  the  author- 
ity of  the  patriarchs,  and  have  unquestionably 
been  sustained  by  an  equally  false  development 
of  the  right  of  property,  especially  landed  prop- 
erty. The  owner  of  the  land,  or  he  who  claimed 
to  own  it,  claimed  as  an  incident  of  his  owner- 
ship the  right  to  govern  it,  and  consequently  to 
govern  all  who  occupied  it.  But  however  valid 
may  be  the  landlord's  title  to  the  soil,  and  it  is 
doubtful  if  man  can  own  any  thing  in  land  be- 
yond the  usufruct,  it  can  give  him  under  the 
law  of  nature  no  political  right.  Property,  like 
all  natural  rights,  is  entitled  by  the  natural  law 
to  protection,  but  not  to  govern.  "Whether  it 
shall  be  made  a  basis  of  political  power  or  not 
is  a  question  of  political  prudence,  to  be  deter- 
mined by  the  supreme  political  authority.  It 
was  the  basis,  and  almost  exclusive  basis,  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  under  feudalism,  and  is  so  still 
in  most  states.  France  and  the  United  States 
are  the  principal  exceptions  in  Christendom. 
Property  alone,  or  coupled  with  birth,  is  made 
elsewhere  in   some   form   a  basis   of  political 


OEIGm  OF  GOVERNMENT.  137 

power,  and  where  made  so  by  the  sovereign  au- 
thority, it  is  legitimate,  but  not  wise  nor  desir- 
able ;  for  it  takes  from  the  weak  and  gives  to  the 
strong.  The  rich  have  in  their  riches  advantages 
enough  over  the  poor,  without  receiving  from  the 
state  any  additional  advantage.  An  aristocracy, 
in  the  sense  of  families  distinguished  by  birth, 
noble  and  patriotic  services,  wealth,  cultivation, 
refinement,  taste,  and  manners,  is  desirable  in 
every  nation,  is  a  nation's  ornament,  and  also 
its  chief  support,  but  they  need  and  should  re- 
ceive no  political  recognition.  They  should 
form  no  privileged  class  in  the  state  or  political 
society. 


138  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBUa 


CHAPTER  VH 

CONSTITUTION  OF  OOVERNMENT. 

The  Constitution  is  twofold :  the  constitution 
of  the  state  or  nation,  and  the  constitution  of 
the  government.  The  constitution  of  the  gov- 
ernment is,  or  is  held  to  be,  the  work  of  the 
nation  itself;  the  constitution  of  the  state,  or 
the  people  of  the  state,  is,  in  its  origin  at  least, 
providential,  given  by  God  himself,  operating 
through  historical  events  or  natural  causes. 
The  one  originates  in  law,  the  other  in  histori- 
cal fact.  The  nation  must  exist,  and  exist  as  a 
political  community,  before  it  can  give  itself  a 
constitution;  and  no  state,  any  more  than  an 
individual,  can  exist  without  a  constitution  of 
some  sort. 

The  distinction  between  the  providential  con- 
stitution of  the  people  and  the  constitution  of 
the  government,  is  not  always  made.  The  illus- 
trious Count  de  Maistre,  one  of  the  ablest  polit- 
ical philosophers  who  wrote  in  the  last  century, 
or  the  first  quarter  of  the  present^  in  his  work 


CONSTITUTION  OF  GOVERNMENT.  13&^ 

on  the  Generative  Princvple  of  Political  Con- 
stitutions, maintains  that  constitutions  are  gen- 
erated, not  made,  and  excludes  all  human  agency 
from  their  formation  and  growth.  Disgusted 
with  French  Jacobinism,  from  which  he  and 
his  king  and  country  had  suffered  so  much,  and 
deeply  wedded  to  monarchy  in  both  church 
and  state,  he  had  the  temerity  to  maintain  that 
God  creates  expressly  royal  families  for  the 
government  of  nations,  and  that  it  is  idle  for  a 
nation  to  expect  a  good  government  without  a 
king  who  has  descended  from  one  of  those 
divinely  created  royal  families.  It  was  with 
some  such  thought,  most  likely,  that  a  French 
journalist,  writing  home  from  the  United  States, 
congratulated  the  American  people  on  having 
a  Bonaparte  in  their  army,  so  that  when  their 
democracy  failed,  as  in  a  few  years  it  was  sure 
to  do,  they  would  have  a  descendant  of  a  royal 
house  to  be  their  king  or  emperor.  Alas !  the 
Bonapai'te  has  left  us,  and  besides,  he  was 
not  the  descendant  of  a  royal  house,  and  was, 
like  the  present  Emperor  of  the  French,  a 
decided  parvenu.  Still,  the  Emperor  of  thfr 
French,  if  only  a  parvenu^  bears  himself  right 
imperially  among  sovereigns,  and  has  no  peer 
among  any  of  the  descendants  of  the  old  royal 
families  of  Europe 


140  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

There  is  a  truth,  however,  in  De  Maistre's 
doctrine  that  constitutions  are  generated,  or 
developed,  not  created  de  novo,  or  made  all  at 
once.  But  nothing  is  more  true  than  that  a 
nation  can  alter  its  constitution  by  its  own  de- 
liberate and  voluntary  action,  and  many  nations 
have  done  so,  and  sometimes  for  the  better,  as 
well  as  for  the  worse.  If  the  constitution  once 
given  is  fixed  and  unalterable,  it  must  be 
wholly  divine,  and  contain  no  human  element, 
and  the  people  have  and  can  have  no  hand  in 
their  own  government — the  fundamental  ob- 
jection to  the  theocratic  constitution  of  society 
To  assume  it  is  to  transfer  to  civil  society, 
founded  by  the  ordinary  providence  of  God, 
t;he  constitution  of  the  church,  founded  by  his 
gracious  or  supernatural  providence,  and  to 
maintain  that  the  divine  sovereignty  governs  in 
civil  society  immediately  and  supernaturally,  as 
in  the  spiritual  society.  But  such  is  not  the 
fact.  God  governs  the  nation  by  thei  nation 
itself,  through  its  own  reason  and  free-will. 
De  Maistre  is  right  only  as  to  the  constitution 
the  nation  starts  with,  and  as  to  the  control 
which  that  constitution  necessarily  exerts  over 
the  constitutional  changes  the  nation  can  suc- 
cessfully introduce. 

The  disciples  of  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau  rec- 


CONSTITUTION  OF  GOYERNMENT.  141 

ognize  no  providential  constitution,  and  call 
the  written  instrument  drawn  up  by  a  conven- 
tion of  sovereign  individuals  the  constitution, 
and  the  only  constitution,  both  of  the  people 
and  the  government.  Prior  to  its  adoption 
there  is  no  government,  no  state,  no  political 
community  or  authority.  Antecedently  to  it 
the  people  are  an  inorganic  mass,  simply  indi- 
viduals, without  any  political  or  national  soli- 
darity. These  individuals,  they  suppose,  come 
together  in  their  own  native  right  and  might, 
organize  themselves  into  a  political  community, 
give  themselves  a  constitution,  and  draw  up 
and  vote  rules  for  their  government,  as  a 
number  of  individuals  might  meet  in  a  public 
hall  and  resolve  themselves  into  a  temperance 
society  or  a  debating  club.  This  might  do  very 
well  if  the  state  were,  like  the  temperance 
society  or  debating  club,  a  simple  voluntary 
association,  which  men  are  free  to  join  or  not  as 
they  pl'ease,  and  which  they  are  bound  to  obey 
no  farther  and  no  longer  than  suits  their  con- 
venience. But  the  state  is  a  power,  a  sov 
ereignty;  speaks  to  all  within  its  jurisdiction 
with  an  imperative  voice ;  commands,  and  may 
use  physical  force  to  compel  obedience,  when 
not  voluntarily  yielded.  Men  are  born  its 
subjects,  and  no   one   can  withdraw  from  it 


142  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

without  its  express  or  tacit  permission,  unless 
for  causes  that  would  justify  resistance  to  its 
.authority.  The  right  of  subjects  to  denational 
ize  or  expatriate  themselves,  except  to  escape  a 
tyranny  or  an  oppression  which  would  forfeit 
the  rights  of  power  and  warrant  forcible  resist- 
ance to  it,  does  not  exist,  any  more  than  the 
right  of  foreigners  to  become  citizens,  unless  by 
the  consent  and  authorization  of  the  sovereign ; 
for  the  citizen  or  subject  belongs  to  the  state, 
and  is  bound  to  it. 

The  solidarity  of  the  individuals  composing 
the  population  of  a  territory  or  countiy  under 
one  political  head  is  a  truth;  but  "the  soli- 
darity of  peoples,"  irrespective  of  the  govern- 
ment or  political  authority  of  their  respective 
countries,  so  eloquently  preached  a  few  years 
since  by  the  Hungarian  Kossuth,  is  not  only  a 
falsehood,  but  a  falsehood  destructive  of  all 
government  and  of  all  political  organization. 
Kossuth's  doctrine  supposes  the  people,  or  the 
populations  of  all  countries,  are,  irrespective  of 
their  governments,  bound  together  in  solido, 
each  for  all  and  all  for  each,  and  therefore  not 
only  free,  but  bound,  wherever  they  find  a  pop- 
ulation struggling  nominally  for  liberty  against 
its  government,  to  rush  with  aiTns  in  their  hands 
Xo  its  assistance — a  doctrine  clearly  incompati- 


CONSTITUTION  OF  GOVERNMENT.  143 

hie  witli  any  recognition  of  political  authority 
or  territorial  rights.  Peoples  or  nations  com 
mune  with  eacli  other  only  thi-oiigh  the  national 
authorities,  and  when  the  state  proclaims  neu- 
trality or  non-intervention,  all  its  subjects  are 
bound  to  be  neutral,  and  to  abstain  from  all 
intervention  on  either  side.  There  may  be,  and 
indeed  there  is,  a  solidarity,  more  or  less  dis- 
tinctly recognized,  of  Christian  nations,  but  of 
the  populations  with  and  through  theii*  govern- 
ments, not  without  them.  Still  more  strict  is 
the  solidarity  of  all  the  individuals  of  one  and 
the  same  nation.  These  are  all  bound  together, 
all  for  each  and  each  for  all.  The  individual  is 
born  into  society  and  under  the  government, 
and  without  the  authority  of  the  government, 
which  represents  all  and  each,  he  cannot  release 
himself  from  his  obligations.  The  state  is  then 
by  no  means  a  voluntary  association.  Every 
one  bom  or  adopted  into  it  is  bound  to  it,  and 
cannot  without  its  permission  withdraw  from 
it,  unless,  as  just  said,  it  is  manifest  that  he  can 
have  under  it  no  protection  for  his  natural 
rights  as  a  man,  more  especially  for  his  rights 
of  conscience.  This  is  Vattel's  doctrine,  and 
the  dictate  of  common  sense. 

The  constitution   drawn  up,   ordained,  and 
established  by  a  nation  for  itself  is  a  law — ^the 


144  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

organic  or  fandamental  law,  if  you  will,  but  a 
law,  and  is  and  must  be  the  act  of  the  sovereign 
power.  That  sovereign  power  must  exist  before 
it  can  act,  and  it  cannot  exist,  if  vested  in  the 
people  or  nation,  without  a  constitution,  or 
without  some  sort  of  political  organization  of 
the  people  or  nation.  There  must,  then,  be  for 
every  state  or  nation  a  constitution  anterior  to 
the  constitution  which  the  nation  gives  itself, 
and  from  which  the  one  it  gives  itself  derives 
all  its  vitality  and  legal  force. 

Logic  and  historical  facts  are  here,  as  else- 
where, coincident,  for  creation  and  providence 
are  simply  the  expression  of  the  Supreme  Logic, 
the  Logos,  by  whom  all  things  are  made.     Na- 
tions have  originated  in  various  ways,  but  his- 
tory records  no  instance  of  a  nation  existing  as 
an  inorganic  mass  organizing  itself  into  a  politi- 
cal community.     Every  nation,  at  its  first  ap- 
pearance above  the  horizon,  is  found  to  have  an 
organization  of  some  sort.   This  is  evident  from 
the  only  ways  in  which  history  shows  us  nations 
originating.    These  ways  are:  1.  The  union  of 
families  in  the  tribe.     2.  The  union  of  tribes 
in  the  nation.     3.  The  migration  of  families, 
tribes,  or  nations  in  search  of  new  settlements^ 
4.  Colonization,  military,  agricultural,  commer- 
cial,  industrial,   religious,   or  penal.     5.  War 


CONSTITUTION  OF  GOYERNMENT.  146 

and  conquest.  6.  The  revolt,  separation,  and 
independence  of  provinces.  7.  The  intermin- 
gling of  the  conquerors  and  conquered,  and 
by  amalgamation  forming  a  new  people. 
These  are  all  the  ways  known  to  history,  and 
in  none  of  these  ways  does  a  people,  absolutely 
destitute  of  all  organisation,  constitute  itself  a 
state,  and  institute  and  carry  on  civil  govem- 
ment. 

The  family,  the  tribe,  the  colony  are,  if  in- 
complete, yet  incipient  states,  or  inchoate  na- 
tions, with  an  organization,  individuality,  and 
a  centre  of  social  life  of  their  own.  •  The  fam- 
ilies and  tribes  that  migrate  in  search  of  new 
settlements  carry  with  them  their  family  and 
tribal  organizations,  and  retain  it  for  a  long 
time.  The  Celtic  tribes  retained  it  in  Gaul  till 
broken  up  by  the  Roman  conquest,  under  Cae- 
sar Augustus ;  in  Ireland,  till  the  middle  of  the 
seventeenth  century ;  and .  in  Scotland,  till  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth.  It  subsists  still  in 
the  hordes  of  Tartary,  the  Arabs  of  the  Desert, 
and  the  Berbers  or  Kabyles  of  Africa. 

Colonies,  of  whatever  description,  have  been 
founded,  if  not  by,  at  least  under,  the  authority 
of  the  mother  country,  whose  political  constitu- 
tion, laws,  manners,  and  customs  they  carry 
with  them.  They  receive  from  the  parent  state 
11 


146  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

a  political  organization,  which,  though  subor- 
dinate, yet  constitutes  them  embryonic  states, 
with  a  unity,  individuality,  and  centre  of  pub- 
lic life  m  themselves,  and  which,  when  they  are 
detached  and  recognized  as  independent,  render 
them  complete  states.  War  and  conquest  effect 
great  national  changes,  but  do  not,  strictly 
speaking,  create  new  states.  They  simply  ex- 
tend and  consolidate  the  power  of  the  conquer- 
ing state. 

Provinces  revolt  and  become  independent 
states  or  nations,  but  only  when  they  have  pre- 
viously existed  as  such,  and  have  retained  the 
tradition  of  their  old  constitution  and  inde- 
pendence; or  when  the  administration  has 
erected  them  into  real  though  dependent  polit- 
ical communities.  A  portion  of  the  people  of 
a  state  not  so  erected  or  organized,  that  has  in 
no  sense  had  a  distinct  political  existence  of  its 
own,  has  never  separated  from  the  national 
body  and  formed  a  new  and  independent  na- 
tion. It  cannot  revolt ;  it  may  rise  up  against 
the  government,  and  either  revolutionize  and 
take  possession  of  the  state,  or  be  put  down  by 
the  government  as  an  insuri'ection.  The  amal- 
gamation of  the  conquering  and  the  conquered 
forms  a  new  people,  and  modifies  the  institu- 
tions of  both,  but  does  not  necessarily  fonn  a 


CONSTITUTION  OF  GOVERNMENT.  147 

new  nation  or  political  community.  The  Eng- 
lish of  to-day  are  very  different  from  both  the 
Normans  and  the  Saxons,  or  Dano-Saxons,  of 
the  time  of  Richard  Cceur  de  Lion,  but  they 
constitute  the  same  state  or  political  community. 
England  is  still  England. 

The  Roman  empire,  conquered  by  the  North 
ern  barbai'ians,  has  been  cut  up  into  several 
separate  and  independent  nations,  but  because 
its  several  provinces  had,  prior  to  their  conquest 
by  the  Roman  arms,  been  independent  nations 
or  tribes,  and  more  especially  because  the  con- 
querors themselves  were  divided  into  several 
distinct  nations  or  confederacies.  If  the  bar- 
barians had  been  united  in  a  single  nation  or 
state,  the  Roman  empii'e  most  likely  would 
have  changed  masters,  indeed,  but  have  retained 
its  unity  and  its  constitution,  for  the  Germanic 
nations  that  finally  seated  themselves  on  its 
ruins  had  no  wish  to  destroy  its  name  or  na- 
tionality, for  they  were  themselves  more  than 
half  Romanized  before  conquering  Rome.  But 
the  new  nations  into  which  the  empire  has  been 
divided  have  never  been,  at  any  moment,  with- 
out political  or  governmental  organization,  con- 
tinued from  the  constitution  of  the  conquering 
tribe  or  .nation,  modified  more  or  less  by  what 
was  retained  from  the  empire. 


148  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

It  is  not  pretended  tLat  the  constitutions  of 
states  cannot  be  altered,  or  that  eveiy  people 
starts  with  a  constitution  fully  developed,  as 
would  seem  to  be  the  doctrine  of  De  Maistre. 
The  constitution  of  the  family  is  rather  econom- 
ical than  political,  and  the  tribe  is  far  from 
being  a  fully  developed  state.  Strictly  speak- 
ing, the  state,  the  modern  equivalent  for  the 
city  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  was  not  fully 
formed  till  men  began  to  build  and  live  in 
cities,  and  became  fixed  to  a  national  territory. 
But  in  the  first  place,  the  eldest  born  of  the  hu- 
man, race,  we  are  told,  built  a  city,  and  even  in 
cities  we  find  traces  of  the  family  and  tribal  or- 
ganization long  after  tjieir  municipal  existence 
— ^in  Athens  down  to  the  Macedonian  conquest, 
and  in  Kome  down  to  the  establishment  of  the 
Empire  ;  and,  in  the  second  place,  the  pastoral 
nations,  though  they  have  not  precisely  the  city 
or  state  organization,  yet  have  a  national 
organization,  and  obey  a  national  authority. 
Strictly  speaking,  no  pastoral  nation  has  a  civil 
or  political  constitution,  but  they  have  what  in 
our  modern  tongues  can  be  expressed  by  no 
other  term.  The  feudal  regime^  which  was  in 
full  vigor  even  in  Europe  from  the  tenth  to  the 
close  of  the  fourteenth  century,  had  nothing  to 
do  with  cities,  and  really  recognized  no  state 


CONSTITUTION  OF  GOVERNMENT.  149 

proper ;  yet  who  hesitates  to  speak  of  it  as  a 
■civil  or  political  systeln,  though  a  very  imper- 
fect one  ? 

The  civil  order,  as  it  now  exists,  was  not  fully 
developed  in  the  early  ages.  For  a  long  time 
the  national  organizations  bore  unmistakable 
traces  of  having  been  developed  from  the  patri- 
a,rchal,  and  modelled  from  the  family  or  tribe, 
as  they  do  still  in, all  the  non-Christian  world. 
Religion  itself,  before  the  Incarnation,  bore 
traces  of  the, same  organization.  Even  with  the 
Jews,  religion  was  transmitted  and  diffused,  not 
-as  under  Christianity  by  conversion,  but  by 
natural  generation  or  family  adoption.  With 
aR  the  Gentile  tribes  or  nations,  it  was  the 
same.  At  first  the  father  was  both  priest  and 
king,  and  when  the  two  ofiices  were  separated, 
the  priests  formed  a  distinct  and  hereditary 
class  or  caste,  rejected  by  Christianity,  which,  as 
we  have  seen,  admits  priests  only  after  the  order 
of  Melchisedech.  The  Jews  had  the  synagogue, 
and  preserved  the  primitive  revelation  in  its 
purity  and  integrity ;  but  the  Greeks  and  Ro- 
mans, more  fully  than  any  other  ancient  nations, 
preserved  or  developed  the  political  order  that 
best  conforms  to  the  Christian  religion;  and 
Ohristianity,  it  is  worthy  of  remark,  followed 
in  the  track  of  the  Roman  armies,  and  it  gains 


160         THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

a  pennanent  establishment  only  where  "was 
planted,  or  where  it  is  able  to  plant,  the  Grseco- 
Roman  civilization.  The  Grseco-Roman  repub- 
lics were  hardly  less  a  schoolmaster  to  bring 
the  world  to  Christ  in  the  civil  order,  than  the 
Jewish  nation  was  to  bring  it  to  Him  in  the 
spiritual  order,  or  in  faith  and  worship.  In  the 
Christian  order  nothing  is  by  hereditary  de- 
scent, but  every  thing  is  by  election  of  grace. 
The  Christian  dispensation  is  teleological,  palin- 
genesiac,  and  the  whole  order,  prior  to  the  In- 
carnation, was  initial,  genesiac,  and  continued 
by  natural  generation,  as  it  is  still  in  all  nations 
and  tribes  outside  of  Christendom.  No  non- 
Christian  people  is  a  civilized  people,  and,  in 
deed,  the  human  race  seems  not  anywhere,  prior 
to  the  Incarnation,  to  have  attained  to  its  ma- 
jority :  and  it  is,  perhaps,  because  the  raCe  were 
not  prepared  for  it,  that  the  Word  was  not 
sooner  incarnated.  He  came  only  in  the  ful- 
ness of  time,  when  the  world  was  ready  to- 
receive  him. 

The  providential  constitution  is,  in  fact,  that 
with  which  the  nation  is  born,  and  is,  as  long 
as  the  nation  exists,  the  real  living  and  efficient 
constitution  of  the  state.  It  is  the  source  of 
the  vitality  of  the  state,  that  which  controls  or 
governs  its  action,  and  determines  its  destiny. 


CONSTITUTION  OF  GOYERNMBNT.  151 

The  constitution  which  a  nation  is  said  to  give 
itself,  is  never  the  constitution  of  the  state,  but 
is  the  law  ordained  by  the  state  for  the  govern- 
ment instituted  under  it.  Thomas  Paine  would 
admit  nothing  to  be  the  constitution  but  a  writ- 
ten document  which  he  could  fold  up  and  put 
in  his  pocket,  or  file  away  in  a  pigeon-hole. 
The  Abb6  Siey^s  pronounced  politics  a  science, 
which  he  had  finished,  and  he  was  ready  to  turn 
you  out  constitutions  to  order,  with  no  other 
defect  than  that  they  had,  as  Carlyle  wittily 
says,  no  feet,  and  could  not  go.  Many  in  the 
last  century,  and  some,  perhaps,  in  the  present, 
for  folly  as  well  as  wisdom  has  her  heirs,  con- 
founded the  written  instrument  with  the  con- 
stitution itself.  No  constitution  can  be  written 
on  paper  or  engrossed  on  parchment.  What 
the  convention  may  agree  upon,  draw  up,  and 
the  people  ratify  by  their  votes,  is  no  constitu- 
tion, for  it  is  extrinsic  to  the  nation,  not  inhe- 
rent and  living  in  it — is,  at  best,  legislative  in- 
stead of  cons-titutive.  The  famous  Magna  Char- 
ta  drawn  up  by  Cardinal  Langton,  and  wrung 
from  John  Lackland  by  the  English  barons  at 
Runnymede,  was  no  constitution  of  England 
till  long  after  the  date  of  its  concession,  and 
even  then  wa&  lo  constitution  of  the*  state,  but  a 
set  of  restrictions  on  power.    The  constitution  is 


152  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

the  intrinsic  or  inherent  and  actual  constitu- 
tion of  the  people  or  political  community  itself; 
that  which  makes  the  nation  what  it  is,  and 
distinguishes  it  from  every  other  nation,  and 
varies  as  nations  themselves  vaiy  from  one  an- 
other. 

The  constitution  of  the  state  is  not  a  theory, 
•nor  is  it  drawn  up  and  established  in  accord 
ance  with  any  preconceived  theory.  What  is 
theoretic  in  a  constitution  is  unreal.  The  con- 
stitutions conceived  by  philosophers  in  their 
closets  are  constitutions  only  of  Utopia  or 
Dreamland.  This  world  is  not  governed  by  ab- 
stractions, for  abstractions  are  nullities.  Only 
the  concrete  is  real,  and  only  the  real  or  actual 
has  vitality  or  force.  The  French  people 
adopted  constitution  after  constitution  of  the 
most  approved  pattern,  and  amid  bonfires, 
beating  of  drums,  sound  of  trumpets,  roar  of 
musketry,  and  thunder  of  artillery,  swore,  no 
doubt,  sincerely  as  well  as  enthusiastically,  to 
observe  them,  but  all  to  no  effect ;  for  they  had 
no  authority  for  the  nation,  no  hold  on  its  affec- 
tions, and  formed  no  element  of  its  life.  The 
English  are  great  constitution-mongers — for 
other  nations.  They  fancy  that  a  constitution 
fashioned  after  their  own  will  fit  any  nation 
that  can  be  persuaded,  wheedled,  or  bullied  into 


CONSTITUTION  OF  GOVERNMENT.  163 

trying  it  on  ;  but,  unhappily,  all  that  have  tried 
it  on  have  found  it  only  an  embarrassment 
or  encumbrance.  The  doctor  might  as  well 
attempt  to  give  an  individual  a  new  constitu- 
tion, or  the  constitution  of  another  man,  as  the 
statesman  to  give  a  nation  any  other  constitu- 
tion than  that  which  it  has,  and  with  which  it 
is  born. 

The  whole  history  of  Europe,  since  the  fall 
of  the  Roman  empire,  proves  this  thesis.  The 
barbarian  conquest  of  Rome  introduced  into 
the  nations  founded  on  the  site  of  the  empire, 
a  double  constitution — the  barbaric  and  the 
civil — the  Germanic  and  the  Roman  in  the 
West,  and  the  Tartaric  or  Turkish  and  the 
Grseco-Roman  in  the  East.  The  key  to  all 
modern  history  is  in  the  mutual  struggles  of 
these  two  constitutions  and  the  interests  re- 
spectively associated  with  them,  wHch  created 
two  societies  on  the  same  territory,  and,  for  the 
most  part,  under  the  same  national  denomina- 
tion. The  barbaric  was  the  constitution  of 
the  conquerors ;  they  had  the  power,  the  gov- 
ernment, rank,  wealth,  and  fashion,  were  reen- 
forced  down  to  the  tenth  century  by  fresh  hordes 
of  barbarians,  and  had  even  brought  the  external 
ecclesiastical  society  to  a  very  great  extent  into 
harmony  with   itself.      The    Pope   became   a 


154  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

feudal  sovereign,  and  the  bisbops  and  mitred 
abbots  feudal  princes  and  barons.  Yet,  after 
eight  hundred  years  of  fierce  struggle,  the  Ro- 
man constitution  got  the  upper  hand,  and  the 
bai baric  constitution,  as  far  as  it  could  not  be 
assimilated  to  the  Roman,  was  eliminated.  The 
original  Empire  of  the  West  is  now  as  thor- 
oughly Roman  in  its  constitution,  its  laws,  and 
its  civilization,  as  it  ever  was  under  any  of  its 
Christian  emperors  before  the  barbarian  con- 
quest. 

The  same  process  is  going  on  in  the  East, 
though  it  has  not  advanced  so  far,  having  be- 
gun there  several  centuries  later,  and  the  Grseco- 
Roman  constitution  was  far  feebler  there  than  in 
the  West  at  the  epoch  of  the  conquest.  The 
Germanic  tribes  that  conquered  the  West  had 
long  had  close  relations  with  the  empire,  had 
served  as  its  allies,  and  even  in  its  armies,  and 
were  partially  Romanized.  Most  of  their  chiefs 
had  received  a  Roman  culture ;  and  their  early 
conversion  to  the  Christian  faith  facilitated  the 
revival  and  permanence  of  the  old  Roman  con- 
stitution. In  the  East  it  was  different.  The 
conquerors  had  no  touch  of  Roman  civilization, 
and,  followers  of  the  Prophet,  they  were  ani- 
mated with  an  intense  hatred,  which,  after  the 
conquest,  was  changed  into  a  superb  contempt^ 


CONSTITUTION  OF  GOVERNMENT.  155 

of  Christians  and  Romans.  They  had  their 
civil  constitution  in  the  Koran  ;  and  Ihe  Koran, 
in  its  principles,  doctrines,  and  spirit,  is  exclu- 
sive, and  profoundly  intolerant.  The  Grseco- 
Roman  constitution  was  always  much  weaker 
in  the  East,  and  had  far  greater  obstacles  to 
overcome  there  than  in  the  West ;  yet  it  has 
survived  the  shock  of  the  conquest.  Through- 
out the  limits  of  the  ancient  Empire  of  the  East, 
the  barbaric  constitution  has  received  and  is 
daily  receiving  rude  blows,  and,  but  as  reen- 
forced  by  barbarians  lying  outside  of  the  boun 
.  daries  of  that  empire,  would  be  no  longer  able 
to  sustain  itself.  The  Greek  or  Christian  pop- 
ulations of  the  empire  are  no  longer  in  danger 
of  being  exterminated  or  absorbed  by  the  Mo-  , 
hammedan  state  or  population.  They  are  the 
only  living  and  progressive  people  of  the  Otto- 
man Empire,  and  their  complete  success  in 
absorbing  or  expelling  the  Turk  is  only  a  ques- 
tion of  time.  They  will,  in  all  present  proba- 
bility, reestablish  a  Christian  and  Roman  East 
in  much  less  time  from  the  fall  of  Constantino- 
ple in  1453,  than  it  took  the  West  from  the  fall 
of  Rome  in  476  to  put  an  end  to  the  feudal  or 
barbaric  constitution  founded  by  its  Germanic 
invaders. 

Indeed,  the   Roman  constitution,  laws,  and 


156  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

civilization  not  only  gain  tlie  mastery  in  the 
nations  seated  within  the  limits  of  the  old  Ro- 
man Empire,  but  extend  their  power  throughout 
the  whole  civilized  world.  The  Graeco-Roman 
civilization  is,  in  fact,  the  only  civilization  now 
recognized,  and  nations  are  accounted  civilized 
only  in  proportion  as  they  are  Romanized  and 
Christianized.  The  Roman  law,  as  found  in  the 
Institutes,  Pandects,  and  Novellas  of  Justinian, 
or  the  Corpus  Legis  Civilis,  is  the  basis  of  the 
law  and  jurisprudence  of  all  Christendom. 
The  Graeco-Roman  civilization,  called  not  im- 
properly Christian  civilization,  is  the  only  pro- 
gressive civilization.  The  old  feudal  system 
remains  in  England  little  more  than  an  empty 
name.  The  king  is  only  the  first  magistrate  of 
the  kingdom,  and  the  House  of  Lords  is  only 
an  hereditaiy  senate.  Austria  is  hard  at  work 
in  the  Roman  direction,  and  finds  her  chief  ob- 
stacle to  success  in  Hungary,  with  the  Magyars 
whose  feudalism  retains  almost  the  full  vigor 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  Russia  is  moving  in  the 
same  direction;  and  Prussia  and  the  smaller 
Germanic  states  obey  the  same  impulse.  In- 
deed, Rome  has  survived  the  conquest — has 
conquered  her  conquerors,  and  now  invades 
every  region  from  which  they  came.  The  Ro 
man  Empire  ma}  be  said  to  be  acknowledged 


CONSTITUTION  OF  GOVERNMENT.  167 

and  obeyed  in  lands  lying  far  beyond  tbe  farthest 
limits  reached  by  the  Roman  eagles,  and  to  be 
more  truly  the  mistress  of  the  world  than 
under  Augustus,  Trajan,  or  the  Antonines. 
Nothing  can  stand  before  the  Christian  and 
Romanized  nations,  and  all  pagandom  and  Mo 
hammedom  combined  are  too  weak  to  resist 
their  onward  march. 

All  modern  European  revolutions  result  only 
in  reviving  the  Roman  Empire,  whatever  the 
motives,  interests,  passions,  or  theories  that  in- 
itiate them.  The  French  Revolution  of  the 
last  century  and  that  of  the  present  prove 
it.  France,  let  people  say  what  they  will, 
stands  at  the  head  of  the  European  civilized 
world,  and  displays  en  grand  all  its  good  and 
all  its  bad  tendencies.  When  she  moves,  Eu- 
rope moves ;  when  she  has  a  vertigo,  all  Euro- 
pean nations  are  dizzy ;  when  she  recovers  her 
health,  her  equilibrium,  and  good  sense,  others 
become  sedate,  steady,  and  reasonable.  She  is 
the  head,  nay,  rather,  the  heart  of  Christendom 
— the  head  is  at  Rome — through  which  circu- 
lates the  pure  and  impure  blood  of  the  nations. 
It  is  in  vain  Great  Britain,  Germany,  or  Russia 
disputes  with  her  the  hegemony  of  European 
civilization.  They  are  forced  to  yield  to  her 
at  last,  to  be  content  to  revolve  ai'ound  her  as> 


168  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

ihe  centre  of  the  political  system,  that  masters 
them.  The  reason  is,  France  is  more  complete- 
ly and  sincerely  Roman  than  any  other  nation. 
The  revolutions  that  have  shaken  the  world 
have  resulted  in  eliminating  the  barbaric  ele- 
ments she  had  retained,  and  clearing  away  all 
obstacles  to  the  complete  triumph  of  Imperial 
Rome.  Napoleon  IIL  is  for  France  what  Augus- 
tus was  for  Rome.  The  revolutions  in  Spain 
-and  Italy  have  only  swept  away  the  relics  of 
the  barbaric  constitution,  and  aided  the  revival 
of  Roman  imperialism.  In  no  country  do  the 
revolutionists  succeed  in  establishing  their  own 
theories;  Caesar  remains  master  of  the  field. 
Even  in  the  United  States,  a  revolution  under- 
taken in  favor  of  the  barbaric  system  has  re* 
suited  in  the  destruction  of  what  remained  of 
that  system — in  sweeping  away  the  last  relics 
of  disintegrating  feudalism,  and  in  the  complete 
establishment  of  the  Graeco-Roman  system,  with 
important  improvements,  in  the  New  World. 

The  Roman  system  is  republican,  in  the  broad 
sense  of  the  term,  because  under  it  power  is 
never  an  estate,  never  the  private  property  of 
the  ruler,  but,  in  whose  hands  soever  vested,  is 
held  as  a  trust  to  be  exercised  for  the  public 
good.  As  it  existed  under  the  CaGsars,  and 
.is  revived  in  modern  times,  whether  under  the 


CONSTITUTION  OF  GOYERNMENT.  ISJ^ 

imperial  or  tlie  democratic  form,  it,  no  doubt, 
tends  to  centralism,  to  the  concentration  of  all 
tlie  powers  and  forces  of  the  state  in  one  cen- 
tral government,  from  which  all  local  authori- 
ties and  institutions  emanate.  Wise  men  oppose 
it  as  affording  no  guaranties  to  individual  lib- 
erty against  the  abuses  of  power.  This  it  may 
not  do,  but  the  remedy  is  not  in  feudalism.  The 
feudal  lord  holds  his  authority  as  an  estate,  and 
has  over  the  people  under  him  all  the  power 
of  Caesar  and  all  the  rights  of  the  proprietor. 
He,  indeed,  has  a  guaranty  against  his  liege, 
lord,  sometimes  a  more  effective  guaranty  than 
his  liege-lord  has  against  him ;  but  against  his 
centralized  power  his  vassals  and  serfs  have 
only  the  guaranty  that  a  slave  has  against  his 
owner. 

Feudalism  is  alike  hostile  to  the  freedom  of 
public  authority  and  of  the  people.  It  is  essen- 
tially a  disintegrating  element  in  the  nation. 
It  breaks  the  unity  and  individuality  of  the 
state,  embarrasses  the  sovereign,  and  guards 
-against  the  abuse  of  public  authority  by  over- 
powering and  suppressing  it.  Every  feudal  lord 
is  a  more  thorough  despot  in  his  own  domain 
than  CsBsar  ever  was  or  could  be  in  the  empire ; 
and  the  monarch,  even  if  strong  enough,  is  yet 
«iot  competent  to  intervene  between  him  and  his 


160  THE  AMERfOAN  REPUBLIC. 

people,  any  more  than  the  General  government 
in  the  United  States  was  to  intervene  between 
the  negro  slave  and  his  master.  The  great  vas- 
sals of  the  crown  singly,  or,  if  not  singly,  in 
combination — and  they  could  always  combine 
in  the  interest  of  their  order — were  too  strong 
for  the  king,  or  to  be  brought  under  any  pub- 
lic authority,  and  could  issue  from  their  fortified 
castles  and  rob  and  plunder  to  their  hearts' 
content,  with  none  to  call  them  to  an  account. 
Under  the  most  thoroughly  centralized  govern- 
ment  there  is  far  more  liberty  for  the  people, 
and  a  far  greater  security  for  person  and  prop- 
erty, except  in  the  case  of  the  feudal  nobles 
themselves,  than  was  even  dreamed  of  while 
the  feudal  regime  was  in  full  vigor.  Nobles 
were  themselves  free,  it  is  conceded,  but  not  the 
people.  The  king  was  too  weak,  too  restricted 
in  his  action  by  the  feudal  constitution  to  reach 
them,  and  the  higher  clergy  were  ex  officio  sov- 
ereigns, princes,  barons,  or  feudal  lords,  and 
were  led  by  their  private  interests  to  act  with 
the  feudal  nobility,  save  when  that  nobility 
threatened  the  temporalities  of  the  church.  The 
only  reliance,  under  God,  left  in  feudal  times  to 
the  poor  people  was  in  the  lower  ranks  of  the 
clergy,  especially  of  the  regular  clergy.  All 
the  great  German  emperors  in  the  twelfth  and 


CONSTITUTION  OF  GOYERNMENT.  161 

thirteenth  centuries,  who  saw  the  evils  of  feu- 
dalism, and  attempted  to  break  it  up  and  revive 
imperial  Rome,  became  involved  in  quarrels 
with  the  chiefs  of  the  religious  society,  and 
failed,  because  the  interest  of  the  Popes,  as  feu- 
dal sovereigns  and  Italian  princes,  and  the  in- 
terests of  the  dignified  clergy,  were  for  the  time 
bound  up  with  the  feudal  society,  though  their 
Roman  culture  and  civilization  made  them  at 
heart  hostile  to  it.  The  student  of  history, 
however  strong  his  filial  affection  towards  the 
visible  head  of  the  church,  cannot  help  admir- 
ing the  grandeur  of  the  political  views  of  Fred- 
eric the  Second,  the  greatest  and  last  of  the 
Hohenstaufen,  or  refrain  from  dropping  a  tear 
over  his  sad  failure.  He  had  great  faults  as  a 
man,  but  he  had  rare  genius  as  a  statesman ; 
and  it  is  some  consolation  to  know  that  he  died 
a  Christian  death,  in  charity  with  all  men,  after 
havincr  received  the  last  sacraments  of  his 
religion. 

The  Popes,  under  the  circumstances,  were  no 
doubt  justified  in  the  policy  they  pursued,  for  the 
Suabian  emperors  failed  to  respect  the  acknowl- 
edged rights  of  the  church,  and  to  remember 
their  own  incompetency  in  spirituals ;  but  evi- 
dently their  political  views  and  aims  were  lib- 
eral, far-reaching,  and   worthy  of  admiration. 

12 


162  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

Their  success,  if  it  could  have  been  effected 
without  lesion  to  the  church,  would  have  set 
Europe  forward  some  two  or  three  hundred 
years,  and  probably  saved  it  from  the  schisms 
of  the  fourteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries.  But 
it  is  easy  to  be  wise  after  the  event.  The  fact 
is,  that  during  the  period  when  feudalism  was 
in  full  vigor,  the  king  was  merely  a  shadow ; 
the  people  found  their  only  consolation  in  re- 
ligion, and  their  chief  protectors  in  the  monks, 
who  mingled  with  them,  saw  their  sufferings, 
and  sympathized  with  them,  consoled  them, 
carried  their  cause  to  the  castle  before  the  feu- 
dal lord  and  lady,  and  did,  thank  God,  do 
something  to  keep  alive  religious  sentiments 
and  convictions  in  the  bosom  of  the  feudal  so- 
ciety itself.  Whatever  opinions  may  be  formed 
of  the  monastic  orders  in  relation  to  the  pres- 
ent, this  much  is  certain,  that  they  were  the 
chief  civilizers  of  Europe,  and  the  chief  agents 
in  delivering  European  society  from  feudal 
barbarism. 

The  aristocracy  have  been  claimed  as  the 
natural  allies  of  the  throne,  but  history  proves 
them  to  be  its  natural  enemies,  whenever  it 
cannot  be  used  in  their  service,  and  kings  do 
not  consent  to  be  their  ministers  and  to  do  their 
bidding.     A  political  aristocracy  has  at  heart 


OONfiTITUTION  OF  GOVERNMENT.  163 

•only  the  interests  of  its  order,  and  pursues 
no  line  of  policy  but  the  extension  or  preserva- 
tion of  its  privileges.  Having  little  to  gain 
and  much  to  lose,  it  opposes  every  political 
change  that  would  either  strengthen  the  crown 
or  elevate  the  people.  The  nobility  in  the 
French  Revolution  were  the  first  to  desert  both 
the  king  and  the  kingdom,  and  kings  have  al- 
ways found  their  readiest  and  firmest  allies  in 
the  people.  The  people  in  Europe  have  no 
such  bitter  feelings  towards  royalty  as  they 
have  towards  the  feudal  nobility — ^for  kings 
have  never  so  grievously  oppressed  them.  In 
Rome  the  patrician  order  opposed  alike  the 
emperor  and  the  people,  except  when  they,  as 
chivalric  nobles  sometimes  will  do,  turned  cour- 
tiers or  demagogues.  They  were  the  people 
of  Rome  and  the  provinces  that  sustained  the 
emperors,  and  they  were  the  emperors  who  sus- 
tained the  people,  and  gave  to  the  provincials 
the  privileges  of  Roman  citizens. 

Guaranties  against  excessive  centi'alism  are 
certainly  needed,  but  the  statesman  will  not 
seek  them  in  the  feudal  organization  of  society 
— in  a  political  aristocracy,  whether  founded  on 
birth  or  private  wealth,  nor  in  a  privileged 
class  of  any .  sort.  Better  trust  Caesar  than 
Brutus,  or  even  Cato.     Nor  will  he  seek  them 


164  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC 

in  the  antagonism  of  interests  intended  to  nen 
tralize  or  balance  each  other,  as  in  the  English 
constitution.  This  was  the  great  en'or  of  Mr» 
Calhoun.  No  man  saw  more  clearly  than  Mr. 
Calhoun  the  utter  worthlessness  of  simple  paper 
constitutions,  on  which  Mr.  Jefferson  placed  such 
implicit  reliance,  or  that  the  real  constitution  is 
in  the  state  itself,  in  the  manner  in  which  the 
people  themselves  are  organized;  but  his  reli- 
ance was  in  constituting,  as  powers  in  the  state, 
the  several  popular  interests  that  exist,  and  pit- 
ting them  against  each  other — the  famous  sys- 
tem of  checks  and  balances  of  English  states- 
men. He  was  led  to  this,  because  he  distrusted 
power,  and  was  more  intent  on  guarding  against 
its  abuses  than  on  providing  for  its  free,  vigor- 
ous, and  healthy  action,  going  on  the  principle 
that  "that  is  the  best  government  which  gov- 
erns least."  But,  if  the  opposing  interests  could 
be  made  to  balance  one  another  perfectly,  the 
result  would  be  an  equilibrium,  in  which  power 
would  be  brought  to  a  stand-still ;  and  if  not, 
the  stronger  would  succeed  and  swallow  up  all 
the  rest.  The  theory  of  checks  and  balances  is 
admirable  if  the  object  be  to  trammel  power, 
and  to  have  as  little  power  in  the  government 
as  possible ;  but  it  is  a  theory  which  is  bom 
from  passions  engendered  by  the  struggle  against 


•     CONSTITUTION  OP  GOYERNMENT.  165 

despotism  or  arbitraiy  power,  not  jfrom  a  calm 
and  philosophical  appreciation  of  government 
itself.  The  English  have  not  succeeded  in 
establishing  their  theory,  for,  after  all,  their 
constitution  does  not  work  so  well  as  they  pre- 
tend. The  landed  interest  controls  at  one  time, 
and  the  mercantile  and  manufacturing  interest 
at  another.  They  do  not  perfectly  balance  one 
another,  and  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  that  the 
mercantile  and  manufacturing  interest,  com- 
bined with  the  moneyed  interest,  is  henceforth 
to  predominate.  The  'aim  of  the  real  states- 
man is  to  organize  all  the  interests  and  forces 
of  the  state  dialectically,  so  that  they  shall 
unite  to  add  to  its  strength,  and  work  together 
harmoniously  for  the  common  gOQd. 


l66  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 


CHAPTER  Vm. 

CONSTITUTION  OF  OOVERNMENT—Co^oiaxdvd, 

Though  tlie  constitution  of  tlie  people  is  con- 
genital, like  tlie  constitution  of  an  individual, 
and  cannot  be  radically  changed  without  the 
destruction  of  the  state,  it  must  not  be  sup- 
posed that  it  is  wholly  withdrawn  from  the 
action  of  the  reason  and  free-will  of  the  nation^ 
nor  from  that  of  individual  statesmen.  All 
created  thingg  are  subject  to  the  law  of  devel- 
opment, and  may  be  developed  either  in  a  good 
sense  or  in  a  bad ;  that  is,  may  be  either  com- 
pleted or  corrupted.  All  the  possibilities  of 
the  national  constitution  are  given  originally 
in  the  birth  of  the  nation,  as  all  the  possibilities' 
of  mankind  were  given  in  the  first  man.  The 
germ  must  be  given  in  the  original  constitution^ 
But  in  all  constitutions  there  is  more  than  one  ele- 
ment, and  the  several  elements  maybe  developed 
pari  passu^  or  unequally,  one  haying  the  as- 
cendency and  suppressing  the  rest.  In  the 
original  constitution  of  Rome  the  patrician  ele- 


CONSTITUTION  OP  aOTERNMENT.  167 

ment  was  dominant,  showing  that  the  patri- 
archal organization  of  society  still  retained  no 
little  force.  The  king  was  only  the  presiding 
officer  of  the  senate  and  the  leader  of  the  army 
in  war.  His  civil  functions  corresponded  very 
nearly  to  those  of  a  mayor  of  the  city  of  New 
York,  where  all  the  effective  power  is  in  the 
aldermen,  common  council,  and  heads  of  de- 
partments. Except  in  name  he  was  little  else 
than  a  pageant.  The  kings,  no  doubt,  labored 
to  develop  and  extend  the  royal  element  of  the 
constitution.  This  was  natural ;  and*  it  was 
equally  natural  that  they  should  be  resisted  by 
the  patricians.  Hence  when  the  Tarquins,  or 
Etruscan  dynasty,  undertook  to  be  kings  in 
fact  as  well  as  in  name,  and  seemed  likely  to 
succeed,  the  patricians  expelled  them,  and  sup- 
plied their  place  by  two  consuls  annually 
elected.  Here  was  a  modification,  but  no  real 
change  of  the  constitution.  The  effective 
power,  as  before,  remained  in  the  senate. 

But  there  was  from  early  times  a  plebeian 
element  in  the  population  of  the  city,  though 
forming  at  first  no  part  of  the  political  people. 
Their  origin  is  not  very  certain,  nor  their  orig- 
inal position  in  the  city.  Historians  give 
different  accounts  of  them.  But  that  they 
should,  as  they  increased  in  numbers,  wealth, 


168  THE  AMERICAN  EEPCJBLIC. 

and  importance,  demand  admission  into  the  po* 
litical  society,  religious  or  solemn  marriage, 
a  voice  in  tlie  government,  and  tlie  faculty  of 
holding  civil  and  military  offices,  was  only  in 
the  order  of  regular  development.  At  first  the 
patricians  fought  them,  and,  failing  to  subdue 
them  by  force,  effected  a  compromise,  and 
bought  up  their  leaders.  The  concession  which 
followed  of  the  tribunitial  veto  was  only  a 
further  development.  By  that  veto  the  ple- 
beians gained  no  initiative,  no  positive  power, 
indeed,  but  their  tribunes,  by  interposing  it, 
could  stop  the  proceedings  of  the  government. 
They  could  not  propose  the  measures  they  liked, 
but  they  could  prevent  the  legal  adoption  of 
measures  they  disliked — a  faculty  Mr.  Calhoun 
asserted  for  the  several  States  of  the  American 
Union  in  his  doctrine  of  nullification,  or  State 
veto,  as  he  called  it.  It  was  simply  an  obstruc- 
tive power. 

But  from  a  power  to  obstruct  legislative  ac- 
tion to  the  power  to  originate  or  propose  it, 
and  force  the  senate  to  adopt  it  through  fear  of 
the  veto  of  measures  the  patricians  had  at 
heart,  was  only  a  still  further  development.  This 
gained,  the  exclusively  patrician  constitution 
had  disappeared,  and  Marius,  the  head  of  a 
great  plebeian  house,  could  be  elected  .consul. 


CONSTITUTION  OF  GOVERNMENT.  169 

and  the  plebeians  in  turn  threaten  to  become 
predominant,  wbicb  Sylla  or  Sulla,  as  dictator, 
seeing,  tried  in  vain  to  prevent.  The  dictator 
was  provided  for  in  the  original  constitution. 
Retain  the  dictatorship  for  a  time,  strength  en- 
the  plebeian  element  by  ruthless  proscriptions  of 
patricians  and  by  recruits  from  the  provinces^ 
unite  the  tribunitial,  pontifical,  and  military 
powers  in  the  imperator  designated  by  the 
army,  all  elements  existing  in  the  constitution 
from  an  early  day,  and  already  developed  in  the 
Roman  state,  and  you  have  the  imperial  consti 
tution,  which  retained  to  the  last  the  senate  and 
consuls,  though  with  less  and  less  practical 
power.  These  changes  are  very  great,  but  are 
none  of  them  radical,  dating  from  the  recogni- 
tion of  the  plebs  as  pertaining  to  the  Roman 
people.  They  are  noimal  developments,  not 
corruptions,  and  the  transition  from  the  con- 
sular republic  to  the  imperial  was  unquestion- 
ably a  real  social  and  political  progress.  And 
yet  the  Roman  people,  had  they  chosen,  could 
have  given  a  different  direction  to  the  develop- 
ments of  their  constitution.  There  was  Provi- 
dence in  the  course  of  events,  but  no  fatalism. 

Sulla  was  a  true  patrician,  a  blind  partisan 
of  the  past.  He  sought  to  arrest  the  plebeian 
development  led  by  Marius,  and  to  restore  the 


170  THE  AMERICAN  REEUBLIO 

exclusively  patrician  government.     But  it  wa* 
too  late.    His  proscriptions,  confiscations,  butch- 
eries, unheard-of   cruelties,  jvhich  anticipated 
and  surpassed  those  of  the  French  Eevolution 
of  1793,  availed  nothing.     The  Marian  or  ple- 
beian movement,  apparently  checked  for  a  mo- 
ment, resumed  its  march  with  renewed  vigor 
under  Julius,  and  triumphed  at  Pharsalia,     In 
vain  Cicero,  only  accidentally  associated  with 
the   patrician  party,  which   distrusted   him — 
in  vain  Cicero  declaims,  Cato  scolds,  or  parades 
his  impractical  virtues,  Brutus  and  Cassius  seize 
the  assassin's  dagger,  and  strike  to  the  earth 
"  the  foremost  man  of  all  the  world ;"  the  plebe- 
ian cause  moves  on  with  resistless  force,  tri- 
umphs anew  at  Philippi,  and  young  Octavius 
avenges  the  murder  of  his  uncle,  and  proves 
to  the  world  that  the  assassination  of  a  niler  is  a 
blunder  as  well  as  a  crime.     In  vain  does  Mark 
Antony    desert   the    movement,   rally   Egypt 
and  the  barbaric  East,  and  seek  to  transfer  the 
seat  of  empire  from  the  Tiber  to  the  banks  of 
the  Nile  or  the  Orontes ;  plebeian  and  imperial 
Rome  wins  a  final  victory  at  Actium,  and  de- 
finitively secures  the  empire  of  the  civilized 
world  to  the  West. 

Thus  far  the  developments  were  normal,  and 
advanced  civilization.     But  Eome  still  retained 


CONSTITUTION  OF  GOVERNMENT.  171 

the  barbaric  element  of  slavery  in  her  bosom, 
and  had  conquered  more  barbaric  nations  than 
she  had  assimilated.  These  nations  she  at 
first  governed  as  tributary  states,  with  their 
own  constitutions  and  national  chiefs;  after- 
wards as  Roman  provinces,  by  her  own  procon- 
suls and  prefects.  When  the  emperors  threw 
open  the  gates  of  the  city  to  the  provincials,, 
and  conceded  them  the  rights  and  privileges  of 
Roman  citizens,  they  introduced  not  only  a  for- 
eign element  into  the  state,  destitute  of  Roman 
patriotism,  but  the  barbaric  and  despotic  ele- 
ments retained  by  the  conquered  nations  as  yet 
only  partially  assimilated.  These  elements  be- 
came germs  of  anti-republican  developments,, 
rather  of  corruptions,  and  prepared  the  down- 
fall of  the  empire.  Doubtless  these  corrup- 
tions might  have  been  aiTested,  and  would  have 
been,  if  Roman  patriotism  had  survived  the 
changes  effected  in  the  Roman  population  by 
the  concession  of  Roman  citizenship  to  provin- 
cials ;  but  it  did  not,  and  they  were  favored  as 
time  went  on  by  the  emperors  themselves,  and 
more  especially  by  Dioclesian,  a  real  barba- 
rian, who  hated  Rome,  and  by  Constantine,  sur- 
named  the  Great,  a  real  despot,  who  converted 
the  empire  from  a  republican  to  a  despotic 
empire.      Rome  fell  from  the  force  of  barba- 


172  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

rism  developed  from  within,  far  more  than  from 
the  force  of  the  barbarians  hovering  on  her 
frontiers  and  invading  her  provinces. 

The  law  of  all  possible  developments  is  in 
the  providential  or  congenital  constitution; 
but  these  possible  developments  are  many  and 
various,  and  the  reason  and  free-will  of  the 
nation  as  well  as  of  individuals  are  operative 
in  determining  which  of  them  shall  be  adopted. 
The  nation,  under  the  direction  of  wise  and 
able  statesmen,  who  understood  their  age 
And  country,  who  knew  how  to  discern  between 
normal  developments  and  barbaric  corruptions, 
placed  at  the  head  of  affairs  in  season,  might 
liave  saved  Rome  from  her  fate,  eliminated  the 
barbaric  and  assimilated  the  foreign  elements, 
and  preserved  Rome  as  a  Christian  and  re- 
publican empire  to  this  day,  and  saved  the  civ- 
ilized world  from  the  ten  centuries  of  barba- 
rism which  followed  her  conquest  by  the  bar- 
barians of  the  North.  But  it  rarely  happens 
that  the  real  statesmen  of  a  nation  are  placed 
-at  the  head  of  affairs. 

Rome  did  not  fall  in  consequence  of  the 
strength  of  her  external  enemies,  nor  through 
the  corruption  of  private  morals  and  manners, 
Tvhich  was  never  greater  than  under  the  first 
Tiiumvirate.     She  fell  from  the  want  of  true 


CONSTITUTION  OF  GOVERNMENT.  173 

statesmansliip  in  her  public  men,  and  patriot- 
ism in  her  people.  Private  virtues  and  private 
vices  are  of  the  last  consequence  to  individuals, 
both  here  and  hereafter;  but  private  virtues 
never  saved,  private  vices  never  ruined  a  nar 
tion.  Edward  the  Confessor  was  a  saint,  and 
yet  he  prepared  the  way  for  the  Norman  con- 
quest of  England ;  and  France  owes  infinitely 
less  to  St.  Louis  than  to  Louis  XI.,  Richelieu, 
and  Napoleon,  who,  though  no  saints,  were 
statesmen.  What  is  specially  needed  in  states- 
men is  public  spirit,  intelligence,  foresight, 
broad  views,  manly  feelings,  wisdom,  energy, 
resolution ;  and  when  statesmen  with  these  qual 
ities  are  placed  at  the  head  of  affairs,  the  state, 
if  not  already  lost,  can,  however  far  gone  it 
may  be,  be  recovered,  restored,  reinvigorated, 
advanced,  and  private  vice  and  cori'uption  dis- 
appear in  the  splendor  of  public  virtue.  Prov- 
idence is  always  present  in  the  affairs  of  na- 
tions, but  not  to  work  miracles  to  counteract 
the  natural  effects  of  the  ignorance,  ineptness, 
short-sightedness,  narrow  views,  public  stupid- 
ity, and  imbecility  of  rulers,  because  they  are 
irreproachable  and  saintly  in  their  private 
characters  and  relations,  as  was  Henry  VI.  of 
England,  or,  in  some  respects,  Louis  XYI.  of 
France    Providence  is  God  intervening  through 


174  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

the  laws  lie  by  his  creative  act  gives  to  crea- 
tures, not  their  suspension  or  abrogation.  It 
was  the  corruption  of  the  statesmen,  in  substi- 
tuting the  barbaric  element  for  the  proper  Ro- 
man, to  which  no  one  contributed  more  than 
Constantine,  the  first  Christian  emperor,  that 
was  the  real  cause  of  the  downfall  of  Rome, 
and  the  centuries  of  barbarism  that  followed, 
relieved  only  by  the  superhuman  zeal  and 
charity  of  the  church  to  save  souls  and  restore 
civilization. 

But  in  the  constitution  of  the  government, 
as  distinguished  from  the  state,  the  nation  is 
freer  and  more  truly  sovereign.  The  constitu 
tion  of  the  state  is  that  which  gives  to  the  peo- 
ple of  a  given  territory  political  existence,  unity, 
and  individuality,  and  renders  it  capable  of  po- 
litical action.  It  creates  political  or  national 
solidarity,  in  imitation  of  the  solidarity  of  the 
race,  in  which  it  has  its  root.  It  is  the  provi- 
dential charter  of  national  existence,  and  that 
which  gives  to  each  nation  its  peculiar  charac- 
ter, and  distinguishes  it  from  every  other  na- 
tion. The  constitution  of  government  is  the 
constitution  by  the  sovereign  authority  of  the 
nation  of  an  agency  or  ministry  for  the  manage- 
ment of  its  affairs,  and  the  letter  of  instructions 
according  to  which  the  agent  or  minister  is  to 


CONSTITUTION  OF  GOVERNMENT.  175 

«ct  and  conduct  the  mattei-s  intrusted  to  Mm. 
The  distinction  which  the  English  make  be- 
tween the  sovereign  and  the  ministry  is  analo 
gous  to  that  between  the  state  and  the  govern 
ment,  only  they  understand  by  the  sovereign 
the  king  or  queen,  and  by  the  ministry  the  ex- 
ecutive, excluding,  or  not  decidedly  including, 
the  legislature  and  the  j  udiciary.  The  sovereign 
is  the  people  as  the  state  or  body  politic, 
and  as  the  king  holds  from  God  only  through 
ihe  people,  he  is  not  properly  sovereign,  and  is 
to  be  ranked  with  the  ministry  or  government. 
Yet  when  the  state  delegates  the  full  or  chief 
governing  power  to  the  king,  and  makes  him 
its  sole  or  principal  representative,  he  may,  with 
sufficient  accuracy  for  ordinary  purposes,  be 
called  sovereign.  Then,  understanding  by  the 
ministry  or  government  the  legislative  and 
judicial,  as  well  as  the  executive  functions, 
whether  united  in  one  or  separated  into  distinct 
and  mutually  independent  departments,  the 
English  distinction  will  express  accurately 
enough,  except  for  strictly  scientific  purposes, 
the  distinction  between  the  state  and  the  gov- 
-ernment. 

Still,  it  is  only  in  despotic  states,  which  are 
not  founded  on  right,  but  force,  that  the  king 
<^n  say,  JDetat^  d'est  moi,  I  am  the  state;  and 


176  THE  AMBEIOAN  REPUBLIO. 

Shakspeare's  usage  of  calling  tlie  king  of  France 
simply  France,  and  the  king  of  England  simply 
England,  smacks  of  feudalism,  under  which 
monarchy  is  an  estate,  property,  not  a  public 
trust.  It  corresponds  to  the  Scottish  usage  of 
calling  the  proprietor  by  the  name  of  his  estate. 
It  is  never  to  be  forgotten  that  in  republican 
states  the  king  has  only  a  delegated  sover- 
eignty, that  the  people,  as  weU  as  God,  are 
above  him.  He  holds  his  power,  as  the  Emperor 
of  the  French  professes  to  hold  his,  by  the 
grace  of  God  and  the  national  will — the  only 
title  by  which  a  king  or  emperor  can  legiti- 
mately hold  power. 

The  king  or  emperor  not  being  the  state, 
and  the  government,  whatever  its  form  or  con- 
stitution, being  a  creature  of  the  state,  he  can 
be  dethroned,  and  the  whole  government  even 
virtually  overthro^vn,  without  dissolving  the 
state  or  the  political  society.  Such  an  event 
may  cause  much  evil,  create  much  social  confu- 
sion, and  do  grave  injuiy  to  the  nation,  but  the 
political  society  may  survive  it ;  the  sovereign 
remains  in  the  plenitude  of  his  rights,  as 
competent  to  restore  government  as  he  was 
originally  to  institute  it.  When,  in  1848,  Louis 
Philippe  was  dethroned  by  the  Parisian  mob, 
and  fled  the  kingdom,  there  was  in  France  no 


CONSTITUTION  OF  GOVERISMENT.  177 

legitimate  government,  for  all  commissions  ran 
in  the  king's  name ;  but  the  organic  or  territo- 
rial people  of  France,  the  hody  politic,  re- 
mained, and  in  it  remained  the  sovereign  power 
to  organize  and  appoint  a  new  government. 
"When,  on  the  2d  of  December,  1851,  the  presi- 
dent, by  a  coup  d'etat,  suppressed  the  legisla- 
tive assembly  and  the  constitutional  govern- 
ment, there  vras  no  legitimate  government 
standing,  and  the  povrer  assumed  by  the  presi- 
dent was  unquestionably  a  usurpation ;  but  the 
nation  was  competent  to  condone  his  usurpa- 
tion and  legalize  his  power,  and  by  a  plebis- 
citum  actually  did  so.  The  wisdom  or  justice 
of  the  coup  d'etat  is  another  question,  about 
which  men  may  differ;  but  when  the  French 
nation,  by  its  subsequent  act,  had  condoned 
it,  and  formally  conferred  dictatorial  powers  on 
the  prince-president,  the  principal  had  approved 
the  act  of  his  agent,  and  given  him  discretion- 
ary powers,  and  nothing  more  was  to  be  said. 
The  imperial  constitution  and  the  election  of 
the  president  to  be  emperor,  that  followed  on 
December  2d,  1852,  were  strictly  legal,  and, 
whatever  men  may  think  of  Napoleon  IH,  it 
must  be  conceded  that  there  is  no  legal  flaw 
in  his  title,  and  that  he  holds  his  power  by  a 

18 


178  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

title  as  higli  and  as  perfect  as  there  is  for  any 
prince  or  ruler. 

But  the  plebiscitum  cannot  be  legally  ap- 
pealed to  or  be  valid  when  and  where  there  is 
&  legal  government  existing  and  in  the  full 
€xercise  of  its  constitutional  functions,  as  was 
decided  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  in  a  case  growing  out  of  what  is  known 
as  the  Dorr  rebellion  in  Rhode  Island.  A  suf- 
frage committee,  having  no  political  authority, 
drew  up  and  presented  a  new  constitution  of 
government  to  the  people,  plead  a  plebisci- 
tum in  its  favor,  and  claimed  the  officers  elected 
imder  it  as  the  legally  elected  officers  of  the 
state.  The  court  refused  to  recognize  the  ple- 
biscitum, and  decided  that  it  knew  Rhode 
Island  only  as  represented  through  the  govern- 
ment, which  had  never  ceased  to  exist.  New 
States  in  Territories  have  been  organized  on  the 
strength  of  a  plebiscitum  when  the  legal  Ter- 
ritorial government  was  in  force,  and  were  ad- 
mitted as  States  into  the  Union,  which,  though 
irregular  and  dangerous,  could  be  done  without 
revolution,  because  Congress,  that  admitted 
them,  is  the  power  to  grant  the  permission  to 
organize  as  States  and  apply  for  admission. 
Congress  is  competent  to  condone  an  offence 
against  its  own  rights.     The  real  danger  of  the 


CONSTITUTION  OF  GOVERNMENT.  179 

practice  is,  that  it  tends  to  create  a  conviction 
tliat  sovereignty  inheres  in  the  people  individ- 
ually, or  as  population,  not  as  the  body  politic 
or  organic  people  attached  to  a  sovereign  do- 
main ;  and  the  people  who  organize  under  a 
plebiscitum  are  not,  till  organized  and  admitted 
into  the  Union,  an  organic  or  a  political  people 
at  all.  When  Louis  Napoleon  made  his  appeal 
to  a  vote  of  the  French  people,  he  made  an  ap- 
peal to  a  people  existing  as  a  sovereign  people, 
and  a  sovereign  people  without  a  legal  govern 
ment.  In  his  case  the  plebiscitum  was  proper 
and  sufficient,  even  if  it  be  conceded  that  it 
was  through  his  own  fault  that  France  at  the 
moment  was  found  without  a  legal  govern- 
ment. When  a  thing  is  done,  though  wrongly 
done,  you  cannot  act  as  if  it  were  not  done,  but 
must  accept  it  as  a  fact  and  act  accordingly. 

The  plebiscitum,  which  is  simply  an  appeal  to 
the  people  outside  of  government,  is  not  valid 
when  the  government  has  not  lapsed,  either  by 
its  usurpations  or  by  its  dissolution,  nor  is  it 
valid  either  in  the  case  of  a  province,  or  of  a 
population  that  has  no  organic  existence  as  an 
independent  sovereign  state.  The  plebiscitum 
in  France  was  valid,  but  in  the  Grand  Duchy 
of  Tuscany,  the  Duchies  of  Modena,  Parma, 
and  Lucca,  and  in  the  Kingdom  of  the  Two 


180  THE  AMERICAN  KEPUBLIC. 

Sicilies  it  was  not  valid,  for  their  legal  govern- 
ments had  not  lapsed;  nor  was  it  valid  in  the 
^iinilian  provinces  of  the  Papal  States,  because 
they  were  not  a  nation  or  a  sovereign  people^ 
but  only  a  portion  of  such  nation  or  people. 
In  the  case  of  the  states  and  provinces — except 
Lombardy,  ceded  to  France  by  Austria,  and  sold 
to  the  Sardinian  king — annexed  to  Piedmont 
to  form  the  new  kingdom  of  Italy,  the  plebis- 
citum  was  invalid,  because  implying  the  light 
of  the  people  to  rebel  against  the  legal  author- 
ity, and  to  break  the  unity  and  individuality 
of  the  state  of  which  they  form  an  integral 
part.  The  nation  is  a  whole,  and  no  part  has 
the  right  to  secede  or  separate,  and  set  up  a 
government  for  itself,  or  annex  itself  to  another 
state,  without  the  consent  of  the  whole.  The 
solidarity  of  the  nation  is  both  a  fact  and  a 
law.  The  secessionists  from  the  United  States 
defended  their  action  only  on  the  ground  that 
the  States  of  the  American  Union  are  sever- 
ally independent  sovereign  states,  and  they 
only  obeyed  the  authority  of  their  respective 
states. 

The  plebiscitum,  or  irregular  appeal  to  what 
is  called  universal  suffrage,  since  adopted  by 
Louis  Napoleon  in  France  after  the  cowp  d'etat, 
ifl  becoming  not  a  little  menacing  to  the  stabil- 


CONSTITUTION  OF  GOVERMMENT.  181 

ity  of  governments  and  tlie  rights  and  integ* 
rity  of  states,  and  is  not  less  dangerous  to  tlie 
peace  and  order  of  society  tlian  "  the  solidarity 
of  peoples"  asserted  by  Kossuth,  the  revolu- 
tionary ex-governor  of  Hungary,  the  last  strong- 
hold of  feudal  barbarism  in  Christian  Europe; 
for  Russia  has  emancipated  her  serfs. 

The  nation,  as  sovereign,  is  free  to  constitute 
government  according  to  its  own  judgment,  un- 
der any  form  it  pleases — monarchical,  aristocrat- 
ic, democratic,  or  mixed — vest  all  power  in  an 
hereditary  monarch,  in  a  class  or  hereditary  no- 
bles, in*  a  king  and  two  houses  of  parliament, 
one  hereditary,  the  other  elective,  or  both  elec- 
tive ;  or  it  may  establish  a  single,  dual,  or  triple 
executive,  make  all  officers  of  government  hered- 
itary or  all  elective,  and  if  elective,  elective  for 
a  longer  or  a  shorter  time,  by  universal  suffrage 
or  a  select  body  of  electors.  Any  of  these 
forms  and  systems,  and  many  others  besides, 
are  or  may  be  legitimate,  if  established  and 
maintained  by  the  national  will.  There  is 
nothing  in  the  law  of  God  or  of  nature,  antece- 
dently to  the  national  will,  that  gives  any  one 
of  them  a  right  to  the  exclusion  of  any  one  of 
the  others.  The  imperial  system  in  France  is  at 
legitimate  as  the  federative  system  in  the 
United  States.     The  only  form  or  system  that 


182         THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

is  necessarily  illegal  is  the  despotic.  That  can 
never  be  a  truly  civilized  government,  nor  a 
legitimate  government,  for  God  has  given  to 
man  no  dominion  over  man.  He  gave  men,  as 
St.  Augustine  says,  and  Pope  St.  Gregory  the 
Great  repeats,  dominion  over  the  irrational 
creation,  not  over  the  rational,  and  hence  the 
primitive  rulers  of  men  were  called  pastors  or 
shepherds,  not  lords.  It  may  be  the  duty  of 
the  people  subjected  to  a  despotic  government 
to  demean  themselves  quietly  and  peaceably 
towards  it,  as  a  matter  of  pnidence,  to  avoid 
sedition,  and  the  evils  that  would  necessarily 
follow  an  attempted  revolution,  but  not  be- 
cause, founded  as  it  is  on  mere  force,  it  has 
itself  any  right  or  legality. 

All  other  forms  of  government  are  republi- 
can in  their  essential  constitution,  founded  on 
public  right,  and  held  under  God  from  and  for 
the  conmionwealth,  and  which  of  them  is  wisest 
and  best  for  the  commonwealth  is,  for  the  most 
part,  an  idle  question.  "Forms  of  govern- 
ment," somebody  has  said,  "are  like  shoes — 
that  is  the  best  form  which  best  fits  the  feet 
that  are  to  wear  them."  Shoes  are  to  be  fitted 
to  the  feet,  not  the  feet  to  the  shoes,  and  feet 
vary  in  size  and  conformation.  There  is,  in  regard 
to  government,  as  distinguished  from  the  state. 


CONSTITUTION  OF  GOVERNMENT.  183 

no  antecedent  riglit  wHch  binds  the  people,  for 
antecedently  to  tlie  existence  of  the  govern- 
ment as  a  fact,  the  state  is  free  to  adopt  any 
foim  that  it  finds  practicable,  or  judges  the 
wisest  and  best  for  itself  Ordinarily  the  form 
of  the  government  practicable  for  a  nation  is 
determined  by  the  peculiar  providential  consti- 
tution of  the  territorial  people,  and  a  form  of 
government  that  would  be  practicable  and 
good  in  one  country  may  be  the  reverse  in 
another.  The  English  government  is  no  doubt 
the  best  practicable  in  Great  Britain,  at  present 
at  least,  but  it  has  proved  a  failure  wherever 
else  it  has  been  attempted.  The  American  sys- 
tem has  proved  itself,  in  spite  of  the  recent 
formidable  rebellion  to  overthrow  it,  the  best 
and  only  practicable  government  for  the  United 
States,  but  it  is  impracticable  everywhere  else, 
and  all  attempts  by  any  European  or  other 
American  state  to  introduce  it  can  end  only 
in  disaster.  The  imperial  system  apparently 
works  well  in  France,  but  though  all  European 
states  are  tending  to  it,  it  would  not  work  well 
at  all  on  the  American  continent,  certainly  not 
until  the  republic  of  the  United  States  has 
ceased  to  exist.  While  the  United  States  re- 
main the  great  American  power,  that  system,  or 
its  kindred  system,  democratic  centralism,  can 


184  THB  AMERICA2T  REPuBLxC 

• 

never  become  an  American  system,  as  Maximil- 
ian's experiment  in  Mexico  is  likely  to  prove. 

Political  propagandism,  except  on  the  Roman 
plan,  that  is,  by  annexation  and  incorporation, 
is  as  impracticable  as  it  is  wanting  in  the  re- 
spect that  one  independent  people  owes  to 
another.  The  old  French  Jacobins  tried  to 
propagate,  even  with  fire  and  sword,  their  sys- 
tem throughout  Europe,  as  the  only  system 
compatible  with  the  rights  of  man.  The  Eng- 
lish, since  1688,  have  been  great  political  prop- 
agandists, and  at  one  time  it  seemed  not  un- 
likely that  every  European  state  would  try  the 
experiment  of  a  parliamentary  government, 
composed  of  an  hereditary  crown,  an  heredi- 
tary house  of  lords,  and  an  elective  house  of 
commons.  The  democratic  Americans  are  also 
great  political  propagandists,  and  are  ready  to 
sympathize  with  any  rebellion,  insurrection,  or 
movement  in  behalf  of  democracy  in  any  part 
of  the  world,  however  mean  or  contemptible, 
fierce  or  bloody  it  may  be ;  but  all  this  is  as 
unstatesmanlike  as  unjust;  un statesmanlike, 
for  no  form  of  government  can  bear  transplant- 
ing, and  because  every  independent  nation  is 
the  sole  judge  of  what  best  comports  with  its 
own  interests,  and  its  judgment  is  to  be  re- 
spected by  the  citizens  as  well  as  by  the  gov- 


CONSTITUTION  OF  GOVERNMENT.  185 

-ernments  of  otlier  states.  Religious  propa- 
gandism  is  a  right  and  a  duty,  because  religion 
is  catholic,  and  of  universal  obligation ;  and  so 
is  the  jiis  gentiwm  of  the  Romans,  which  is  only 
the  application  to  individuals  and  nations  of 
the  great  principles  of  natural  justice ;  but  no 
political  propagandism  is  ever  allowable,  because 
no  one  form  of  govemnient  is  catholic  in  its 
nature,  or  of  universal  obligation. 

Thoughtful  Americans  are  opposed  to  politi- 
cal propagandism,.  and  respect  the  right  of 
every  nation  to  choose  its  own  form  of  govern- 
ment ;  but  they  hold  that  the  American  system 
is  the  best  in  itself,  and  that  if  other  nations 
were  as  enlightened  as  the  American,  they 
would  adopt  it.  But  though  the  American 
system,  rightly  understood,  is  the  best,  as  they 
hold,  it  is  not  because  other  nations  are  less 
enlightened,  which  is  by  no  means  a  fact,  that 
they  do  not  adopt,  or  cannot  bear  it,  but  solely 
because  their  providential  constitutions  do  not 
require  or  admit  it,  and  an  attempt  to  introduce 
it  in  any  of  them  would  prove  a  failure  and  a 
grave  evil. 

Fit  your  shoes  to  your  feet.  The  law  of  the 
governmental  constitution  is  in  that  of  the  na- 
tion. The  constitution  of  the  government  must 
grow  out  of  the  constitution  of  the  state,  and 


186  THE  AMERICAN  BEPUBLIC. 

accord  with  the  genius,  the  character,  the  habits,, 
customs,  and  wants  of  the  people,  or  it  will  not 
work  well,  or  tend  to  secure  the  legitimate  ends 
of  government.  The  constitutions  imagined  by 
philosophers  are  for  Utopia,  not  for  any  ac- 
tual, living,  breathing  people.  You  must  take 
the  state  as  it  is,  and  develop  your  govern- 
mental constitution  from  it,  and  harmonize  it 
with  it.  Where  there  is  a  discrepancy  between 
the  two  constitutions,  the  government  has  no 
support  in  the  state,  in  the  organic  people,  or 
nation,  and  can  sustain  itself  only  by  corrup- 
tion or  physical  force.  A  government  may  be 
under  the  necessity  of  using  force  to  suppress  an 
insurrection  or  rebellion  against  the  national  au 
thority,  or  the  integrity  of  the  national  territory, 
but  no  government  that  can  sustain  itself, 
not  the  state,  only  by  physical  force  or  large 
standing  armies,  can  be  a  good  government,  or 
suited  to  the  nation.  It  must  adopt  the  most 
stringent  repressive  measures,  suppress  liberty 
of  speech  and  of  conscience,  outrage  liberty 
in  what  it  has  the  most  intimate  and  sacred^ 
and  pi'actise  the  most  revolting  violence  and 
cruelty,  for  it  can  govern  only  by  terror.  Such 
a  government  is  unsuited  to  the  nation. 

This  is  seen  in  all  history:  in  the  attempt 
of  the  dictator  Sulla  to  preserve  the  old  patri- 


CONSTITUTION  OF   GOVERNMENT.  187 

cian  government  against  tlie  plebeian  power 
that  time  and  events  had  developed  in  the  Ro- 
man state,  and  which  was  about  to  gain  the  su- 
premacy, as  we  have  seen,  at  Pharsalia,  Philippi, 
and  Actium ;  in  the  efforts  to  establish  a  Jaco 
binical  government  in  France  in  1793  ;  in  Rome 
in  1848,  and  the  government  of  Victor  Em- 
manuel in  Naples  in  1860  and  1861.  These 
efforts,  proscriptions,  confiscations,  military  ex- 
ecutions, assassinations,  massacres,  are  all  made 
in  the  name  of  liberty,  or  in  defence  of  a  gov- 
ernment supposed  to  guaranty  the  well-being 
of  the  state  and  the  rights  of  the  people.  They 
are  rendered  inevitable  by  the  mad  attempt  to 
force  on  a  nation  a  constitution  of  government 
foreign  to  the  national  constitution,  or  repug- 
nant to  the  national  tastes,  interests,  habits, 
convictions,  or  whole  interior  life.  The  repres- 
sive policy,  adopted  to  a  certain  extent  by  nearly 
all  European  governments,  grows  out  of  the 
madness  of  a  portion  of  the  people  of  the  several 
states  in  seeking  to  force  upon  the  nation  an 
anti-national  constitution.  Tlie  sovereigns  may 
not  be  very  wise,  but  they  are  wiser,  more  na- 
tional, more  patriotic  than  the  mad  theorists 
who  seek  to  revolutionize  the  state  and  estab- 
lish a  government  that  has  no  hold  in  the  na- 
tional traditions,  the  national  character,  or  the 


188  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIO. 

national  life ;  and  the  statesman,  tlie  patriot,  the 
true  friend  of  liberty  sympathizes  with  the  na- 
tional authorities,  not  with  the  mad  theorists 
and  revolutionists. 

The  right  of  a  nation  to  change  its  form  of 
government,  and  its  magistrates  or  representar 
tives,  by  whatever  name  called,  is  incontestable. 
Hence  the  French  constitution  of  1789,  which 
involved  that  of  1793,  was  not  illegal,  for 
though  accompanied  by  some  irregularities,  it 
was  adopted  by  the  manifest  will  of  the  nation, 
and  consented  to  by  all  orders  in  the  state. 
Not  its  legality  but  its  wisdom  is  to  be  ques- 
tioned, together  with  the  false  and  dangerous 
theories  of  government  which  dictated  it.  There 
is  no  compact  or  mutual  stipulation  between 
the  state  and  the  government.  The  state,  un- 
der God,  is  sovereign,  and  ordains  and  estab- 
lishes the  government,  instead  of  making  a 
contract,  a  bargain,  or  covenant,  with  it.  The 
common  democratic  doctrine  on  this  point  is 
right,  if  by  people  is  understood  the  organic 
people  attached  to  a  sovereign  domain,  not  the 
people  as  individuals  or  as  a  floating  or  nomadic 
multitude.  By  people  in  the  political  sense, 
Cicero,  and  St.  Augustine  after  him,  understood 
the  people  as  the  republic,  organized  in  reference 
to  the  common  or  public  good.  With  this  under- 


CONSTITUTION  OF  GOVERNMENT.  18^ 

standing,  the  sovereignty  persists  in  the  people, 
and  they  retain  the  supreme  authority  over  the 
government.  The  powers  delegated  are  still  the 
powers  of  the  sovereign  delegating  them,  and. 
may  be  modified,  altered,  or  revoked,  as  the 
sovereign  judges  proper.  The  nation  does  not, 
and  cannot  abdicate  or  delegate  away  its  own 
sovereignty,  for  sovereign  it  is,  and  cannot  but 
be,  so  long  as  it  remains  a  nation  not  subjected 
to  another  nation. 

By  the  imperial  constitution  of  the  French 
government,  the  imperial  power  is  vested  in 
Napoleon  III.,  and  made  hereditary  in  his 
family,  in  the  male  line  of  his  legitimate  de- 
scendants. This  is  legal,  but  the  nation  has  not 
parted  with  its  sovereignty  or  bound  itself  by 
contract  forever  to  a  Napoleonic  dynasty.  Na- 
poleon holds  the  imperial  power  "by  the  grace 
of  God  and  the  will  of  the  nation,"  which 
means  simply  that  he  holds  his  authority  from 
God,  through  the  French  people,  and  is  bound 
to  exercise  it  according  to  the  law  of  God  and 
the  national  will.  The  nation  is  as  competent 
to  revoke  this  constitution  as  the  legislature  is 
to  repeal  any  law  it  is  competent  to  enact,  and 
in  doing  so  breaks  no  contract,  violates  no 
right,  for  Napoleon  and  his  descendants  hold 
their  right  to  the  imperial  throne  subject  to  the 


190  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

-national  will  from  which  it  is  derived.  In  case 
the  nation  should  revoke  the  powers  delegated, 
he  or  they  would  have  no  more  valid  claim  to 
the  throne  than  have  the  Bourbons,  whom  the 
nation  has  unmistakably  dismissed  from  its 
service. 

The  only  point  here  to  be  observed  is,  that 
the  change  must  be  by  the  nation  itself,  in  its 
sovereign  capacity ;  not  by  a  mob,  nor  by  a  part 
of  the  nation  conspiring,  intriguing,  or  rebelling, 
without  any  commission  from  the  nation.  The 
first  Napoleon  governed  by  a  legal  title,  but  he 
was  never  legally  dethroned,  and  the  govern 
ment  of  the  Bourbons,  whether  of  the  elder 
branch  or  the  younger,  was  never  a  legal  gov- 
ernment, for  the  Bourbons  had  lost  their  origi- 
nal rights  by  the  election  of  the  first  Napoleon, 
and  never  afterwards  had  the  national  will  in 
their  favor.  The  republic  of  1848  was  legal, 
in  the  sense  that  the  nation  acquiesced  in  it  as 
a  temporary  necessity;  but  hardly  anybody  be- 
lieved in  it  or  wanted  it,  and  the  nation  accept- 
ed it  as  a  sort  of  locum  tenens^  rather  than  willed 
or  ordained  it.  Its  overthrow  by  the  coup  d^etat 
may  not  be  legally  defensible,  but  the  election 
of  Napoleon  III.  condoned  the  illegality,  if  there 
was  any,  and  gave  the  emperor  a  legal  title, 
that   no  republican,  that  none  but   a  despot 


CONSTITUTION  OF  GOVERNMENT.  191 

or  a  no-goverument  man  can  dispute.  As  the 
will  of  tlie  nation,  in  so  far  as  it  contravenes 
not  the  law  of  God  or  the  law  of  nature,  binds 
every  individual  of  the  nation,  no  individual  or 
number  of  individuals  has,  or  can  have,  any 
right  to  conspire  against  him,  or  to  labor  to  oust 
him  from  his  place,  till  his  escheat  has  been  pro- 
nounced by  the  voice  of  the  nation.  The  state, 
in  its  sovereign  capacity,  willing  it,  is  the  only 
power  competent  to  revoke  or  to  change  the  form 
and  constitution  of  the  imperial  government. 
The  same  must  be  said  of  every  nation  that  has 
a  lawful  government;  and  this,  while  it  pre- 
serves the  national  sovereignty,  secures  freedom 
of  progress,  condemns  all  sedition,  conspiracy, 
rebellion,  revolution,  as  does  the  Christian  law 
itself. 


192  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBUO 


CHAPTEE  IX. 

THE  UNITED  STATES. 

SovEEEiGioTr,  under  God,  inheres  in  the  organ- 
ic people,  or  the  people  as  the  republic;  and  every 
organic  people  fixed  to  the  soil,  and  politically 
independent  of  every  other  people,  is  a  sover- 
eign people,  and,  in  the  modem  sense,  an  in- 
dependent sovereigii  nation. 

Sovereign  states  may  unite  in  an  alliance, 
league,  or  confederation,  and  mutually  agree 
to  exercise  their  sovereign  powers  or  a  portion 
of  them  in  common,  through  a  common  organ 
or  agency;  but  in  this  agreement  they  part 
with  none  of  their  sovereignty,  and  each  remains 
a  sovereign  state  or  nation  as  before.  The  com- 
mon organ  or  agency  created  by  the  convention 
is  no  state,  is  no  nation,  has  no  inherent  sover- 
eignty, and  derives  all  its  vitality  and  force 
from  the  persisting  sovereignty  of  the  states 
severally  that  have  united  in  creating  it.  The 
agreement  no  more  affects  the  sovereignty  of 
the  several  states  entering  into  it,  than  does  the 


THE  UNITED  STATES.  193 

appointment  of  an  agent  affect  tlie  ngnts  and 
powers  of  tlie  principaL  The  creature  takes 
nothing  from  tlie  Creator,  exhausts  not,  lessens 
not  his  creative  energy,  and  it  is  only  by  his 
retaining  and  continuously  exerting  his  creative 
power  that  the  creature  continues  to  exist. 

An  independent  state  or  nation  may,  with  or 
without  its  consent,  lose  its  sovereignty,  but 
only  by  being  merged  in  or  subjected  to  another. 
Independent  sovereign  states  cannot  by  conven- 
tion, or  mutual  agreement,  form  tliemselves  into 
a  single  sovereign  state  or  nation.  The  com- 
pact, or  agreement,  is  made  by  sovereign  states, 
and  binds  by  virtue  of  the  sbvereign  power  of 
each  of  the  contracting  parties.  To  destroy 
that  sovereign  power  would  be  to  annul  the 
compact,  and  render  void  the  agreement.  The 
agreement  can  be  valid  and  binding  only  on 
condition  that  each  of  the  contracting  parties 
retains  the  sovereignty  that  rendered  it  com- 
petent to  enter  into  the  compact,  and  states  that 
retain  severally  their  sovereignty  do  not  form  a 
single  sovereign  state  or  nation.  The  states  in 
convention  cannot  become  a  new  and  single 
sovereign  state,  unless  they  lose  their  several 
sovereignty,  and  merge  it  in  the  new  sovereignty; 
but  this  they  cannot  do  by  agreement,  because 
the  moment  the  parties  to  the  agreement  cease 

14 


194  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

to  be  sovereign,  the  agreement,  on  which  alone 
depends  the  new  sovereign  state,  is  vacated,  in 
like  manner  as  a  contract  is  vacated  by  the 
death  of  the  contracting  parties. 

That  a  nation  may  voluntarily  cede  its  sover- 
eignty is  frankly  admitted,  but  it  can  cede  it 
only  to  something  or  somebody  actually  existing, 
for  to  cede  to  nothing  and  not  to  cede  is  one 
and  the  same  thing.  They  can  part  with  their 
own  sovereignty  by  merging  themselves  in  an- 
other national  existence,  but  not  by  merging 
themselves  in  nothing ;  and,  till  they  have  part- 
ed with  theii'  own  sovereignty,  the  new  sover- 
eign state  does  not  exist.  A  prince  can  abdi- 
cate his  power,  because  by  abdicating  he  simply 
gives  back  to  the  people  the  trust  he  had  re- 
ceived from  them;  but  a  nation  cannot,  save 
by  merging  itself  in  another.  An  independent 
state  not  merged  in  another,  or  that  is  not  sub- 
ject to  another,  cannot  cease  to  be  a  sovereign 
nation,  even  if  it  would. 

That  no  sovereign  state  can  be  formed  by 
agreement  or  compact  has  already  been  shown 
in  the  refutation  of  the  theory  of  the  origin  of 
government  in  convention,  or  the  so-called  social 
compact.  Sovereign  states  are  as  imable  to  form 
themselves  into  a  single  sovereign  state  by 
mutual  compact  as  are  the  sovereign  individ- 


THE  UNITED  STATES.  195 

uals  imagined  by  Rousseau.  The  convention, 
either  of  sovereign  states  or  of  sovereign  indi- 
viduals, with  the  best  vpill  in  the  World,  can 
form  only  a  compact  or  agreement  between  sov- 
ereigns, and  an  agreement  or  compact,  whatever 
its  terms  or  conditions,  is  only  an  alliance,  a 
league,  or  a  confederation,  which  no  one  can 
pretend  is  a  sovereign  state,  nation,  or  republic. 
The  question,  then,  whether  the  United  States 
are  a  single  sovereign  state  or  nation,  or  a  con- 
federacy of  independent  sovereign  states,  de- 
pends on  the  question  whether  the  American 
people  originally  existed  as  one  people  or  as 
several  independent  states.  Mr.  Jefferson  main- 
tains that  before  the  convention  of  1787  they 
existed  as  several  independent  sovereign  states, 
but  that  since  that  convention,  or  the  ratification 
of  the  constitution  it  proposed,  they  exist  as  one 
political  people  in  regard  to  foreign  nations, 
and  several  sovereign  states  in  regard  to 
their  internal  and  domestic  relations.  Mr. 
Webster  concedes  that  originally  the  States  ex- 
isted as  severally  sovereign  states,  but  contends 
that  by  ratifying  the  constitution  they  have  been 
made  one  sovereign  political  people,  state,  or 
nation,  and  that  the  General  government  is 
a  supreme  national  government,  though  with  a 
reservation  in  favor  of  State  rights.    But  both 


196  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

are  wrong.  If  tlie  several  States  of  the  Union 
were  severally  sovereign  states  when  they  met 
in  the  convention,  they  are  so  now ;  and  the 
constitution  is  only  an  agreement  or  compact 
between  sovereigns,  and  the  United  States  are, 
as  Mr.  Calhoun  maintained,  only  a  confedera- 
tion of  sovereign  states,  and  not  a  single  state 
or  one  political  community. 

But  if  the  sovereignty  persists  in  the  States 
severally,  any  State,  saving  its  faith,  may,  when- 
ever it  chooses  to  do  so,  withdraw  from  the 
Union,  absolve  its  subjects  from  all  obligation 
to  the  Federal  authorities,  and  make  it  treason 
in  them  to  adhere  to  the  Federal  government. 
Secession  is,  then,  ail  incontestable  right ;  not  a 
right  held  under  the  constitution  or  derived 
from  the  convention,  but  a  right  held  prior  to 
it,  independently  of  it,  inherent  in  the  State 
sovereignty,  and  inseparable  from  it.  The  State 
is  bound  by  the  constitution  of  the  Union 
only  while  she  is  in  it,  and  is  one  of  the  States 
united.  In  ratifying  the  constitution  she  did 
not  part  with  her  sovereignty,  or  with  any  por- 
tion of  it,  any  more  than  France  has  parted  with 
her  sovereignty,  and  ceased  to  be  an  indepen- 
dent sovereign  nation,  by  vesting  the  imperial 
power  in  Napoleon  UL  and  his  legitimate  heirs 
male.     The  principal  parts  not  with  his  power 


THE  UNITED  STATES.  197 

to  his  agent,  for  the  agent  is  an  agent  only  by 
virtue  of  the  continued  power  of  the  principal. 
Napoleon  is  emperor  by  the  will  of  the  French 
people,  and  governs  only  by  the  authority  of 
the  French  nation,  which  is  as  competent  to  re- 
vote  the  powers  it  has  conferred  on  him,  when 
it  judges  proper,  as  it  was  to  confer  them.  The 
Union  exists  and  governs,  if  the  States  are 
sovereign,  only  by  the  will  of  the  State,  and  she 
is  as  competent  to  revoke  the  powers  she  has 
delegated  as  she  was  to  delegate  them.  The 
Union,  as  far  as  she  is  concerned,  is  her  creation, 
and  what  she  is  competent  to  make  she  is 
-competent  to  unmake. 

In  seceding  or  withdrawing  from  the  Union  a 
State  may  act  very  unwisely,  very  much  against 
her  own  interests  and  the  interests  of  the  other 
members  of  the  confederacy;  but,  if  sovereign, 
she  in  doing  so  only  exercises  her  unquestionable 
right.  The  other  members  may  regret  her 
action,  both  for  her  sake  and  their  own,  but  they 
<3annot  accuse  her  or  her  citizens  of  disloyalty  in 
seceding,  nor  of  rebellion,  if  in  obedience  to  her 
authority  they  defend  their  independence  by 
force  of  arms  against  the  Union.  Neither  she 
nor  they,  on  the  supposition,  ever  owed  alle- 
giance to  the  Union.  Allegiance  is  due  from 
tlie  citizen  to  the  sovereign  state,  but  never  from 


198  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

a  sovereign  state  or  from  its  citizens  to  any 
other  sovereign  state.  While  the  State  is  in  the 
Union  the  citizen  owes  obedience  to  the  United 
States,  but  only  because  his  State  has,  in  ratify- 
ing the  Federal  constitution,  enacted  that  it  and 
all  laws  and  treaties  made  under  it  shall  be  law 
within  her  territory.  The  repeal  by  the  State 
of  the  act  of  ratification  releases  the  citizen  from 
the  obligation  even  of  obedience,  and  renders  it 
criminal  for  him  to  yield  it  without  her  permis- 
sion. 

It  avails  nothing,  on  the  hypothesis  of  the 
sovereignty  of  the  States  as  distinguished  from 
that  of  the  United  States,  to  appeal  to  the  lan- 
guage or  provisions  of  the  Federal  constitution. 
That  constitutes  the  government,  not  the  state 
or  the  sovereign.  It  is  ordained  by  the  sover- 
eign, and  if  the  States  were  severally  indepen- 
dent and  sovereign  states,  that  sovereign  is  the 
States  severally,  not  the  States  united.  The  con- 
stitution is  law  for  the  citizens  of  a  State  only 
so  long  as  the  State  remains  one  of  the  United 
States.  No  matter,  then,  how  clear  and  express 
the  laLguage,  or  stringent  the  provisions  of  the 
constitution,  they  bind  only  the  citizens  of  the 
States  that  enact  the  constitution.  The  written 
constitution  is  simply  a  compact,  and  obliges 
only  while  the  compact  is  continued  by  the 


THE  UNITED  STATES.  199 

States,  eacli  for  itself.  The  sovereignty  of  the 
United  States  as  a  single  or  political  people 
must  be  established  before  any  thing  in  the  con- 
stitution can  be  adduced  as  denying  the  right 
of  secession. 

That  this  doctrine  would  deprive  the  General 
government  of  all  right  to  enforce  the  laws  of 
the  Union  on  a  State  that  secedes,  or  the  citi- 
zens thereof,  is  no  doubt  true ;  that  it  would 
weaken  the  central  power  and  make  the  Union 
a  simple  voluntary  association  of  states,  no  bet- 
ter than  a  rope  of  sand,  is  no  less  true ;  but 
what  then  ?  It  is  simply  saying  that  a  confed- 
eration is  inferior  to  a  nation,  and  that  a  federal 
government  lacks  many  of  the  advantages  of  a 
national  government.  Confederacies  are  always 
weak  in  the  centre,  always  lack  unity,  and  are 
liable  to  be  dissolved  by  the  inlluence  of  local 
passions,  prejudices,  and  interests.  But  if  the 
United  States  are  a  confederation  of  states  or 
nations,  not  a  single  nation  or  sovereign  state, 
then  there  is  no  remedy. 

If  the  Anglo-American  colonies,  when  their 
independence  of  Great  Britain  was  achieved 
and  acknowledged,  were  severally  sovereign 
states,  it  has  never  since  been  in  their  power 
to  unite  and  form  a  single  sovereign  state,  or  to 
form  themselves  into  one  indivisible  sovereign 


200  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

nation.  They  could  unite  only  by  mutual 
agreement,  which  gives  only  a  confederation,  in 
which  each  retains  its  own  sovereignty,  as  two 
individuals,  however  closely  united,  retain  each 
his  own  individuality.  No  sovereignty  is  of 
conventional  origin,  and  none  can  emerge  from 
the  convention  that  did  not  enter  it.  Either  the 
states  are  one  sovereign  people  or  they  are  not. 
If  they  are  not,  it  is  undoubtedly  a  great  dis- 
advantage ;  but  a  disadvantage  that  must  be 
accepted,  and  submitted  to  without  a  murmur. 

Whether  the  United  States  are  one  sovereign 
people  or  only  a  confederation  is  a  question  of 
very  grave  importance.  If  they  are  only  a  confed- 
eration of  states — and  if  they  ever  were  severally 
sovereign  states,  only  a  confederation  they  cer- 
tainly are  —  state  secession  is  an  inalienable 
right,  and  the  government  has  had  no  right  to 
make  war  on  the  secessionists  as  rebels,  or  to 
treat  them,  when  their  military  power  is  broken, 
as  traitors,  or  disloyal  persons.  The  honor  of 
the  government,  and  of  the  people  who  have 
sustained  it,  is  then  deeply  compromised. 

What  then  is  the  fact?  Are  the  United 
States  politically  one  people,  nation,  state,  or 
republic,  or  are  they  simply  independent  sov- 
ereign states  united  in  close  and  intimate  alli- 
ance, league,  or  federation,  by  a  mutual  pact  or 


THE  UNITED  STATES.  201 

agreement?  Were  the  people  of  the  United 
States  who  ordained  and  established  the  writ- 
ten constitution  one  people,  or  were  they  not  ? 
If  they  were  not  before  ordaining  and  estab- 
lishing the  government,  they  are  not  now ;  for 
the  adoption  of  the  constitution  did  not  and 
could  not  make  them  one.  "Whether  they  are 
one  or  many  is  then  simply  a  question  of  fact, 
to  be  decided  by  the  facts  in  the  case,  not  by 
the  theories  of  American  statesmen,  the  opinion 
of  jurists,  or  even  by  constitutional  law  itself 
The  old  Articles  of  Confederation  and  the  later 
Constitution  can  serve  here  only  as  historical 
documents.  Constitutions  and  laws  presuppose 
the  existence  of  a  national  sovereign  from  which 
they  emanate,  and  that  ordains  them,  for  they 
are  the  formal  expression  of  a  sovereign  will.  The 
nation  must  exist  as  an  historical  fact,  piior  to  the 
possession  or  exercise  of  sovereign  power,  prior 
to  the  existence  of  written  constitutions  and 
laws  of  any  kind,  and  its  existence  must  be 
established  before  they  can  be  recognized  as 
having  any  legal  force  or  vitality. 

The  existence  of  any  nation,  as  an  indepen- 
dent sovereign  nation,  is  a  purely  historical  fact, 
for  its  right  to  exist  as  such  is  in  the  simple 
fact  that  it  does  so  exist.  A  nation  de  facto  is 
a  nation  de  jure,  and  when  we  have  ascertained 


80a$  THE  AMERICAN  REPtJBLIC. 

the  fact,  we  have  ascertained  the  right.  There 
is  no  right  in  the  case  separate  from  the  fact — 
only  the  fact  must  be  really  a  fact.  A  people 
hitherto  a  part  of  another  people,  or  subject  to 
another  sovereign,  is  not  in  fact  a  nation,  be- 
cause they  have  declared  themselves  indepen- 
dent, and  have  organized  a  government,  and  are 
engaged  in  what  promises  to  be  a  successful 
struggle  for  independence.  The  struggle  must 
be  practically  over ;  the  former  sovereign  must 
have  practically  abandoned  the  effort  to  reduce 
them  to  submission,  or  to  bring  them  back 
under  his  authority,  and  if  he  continues  it, 
does  it  as  a  matter  of  mere  form ;  the  postulant 
must  have  proved  his  ability  to  maintain  civil 
government,  and  to  fulfil  within  and  without 
the  obligations  which  attach  to  every  civil- 
ized nation,  before  it  can  be  recognized  as  an 
mdependent  sovereign  nation ;  because  before 
it  is  not  a  fact  that  it  is  a  sovereign  nation^ 
The  prior  sovereign,  when  no  longer  will- 
ing or  able  to  vindicate  his  right,  has  lost  it, 
and  no  one  is  any  longer  bound  to  respect 
it,  for  humanity  demands  not  martyrs  to  lost 
causes. 

Tliis  doctrine  may  seem  harsh,  and  untena- 
ble even,  to  those  sickly  philanthropists  who 
are  always  weeping  over  extinct  or  oppressed 


THE  UNITED  STATES.  20iJ- 

nationalities ;  but  nationality  in  modern  civiliza- 
tion is  a  fact,  not  a  riglit  antecedent  to  the  fact. 
The  repugnance  felt  to  this  assertion  arises 
chiefly  from  using  the  word  nation  sometimes 
in  a  strictly  political  sense,  and  sometimes  in  its 
original  sense  of  tribe,  and  imderstanding  by  it 
not  simply  the  body  pplitic,  but  a  certain  re- 
lation of  origin,  family,  kindred,  blood,  or  race. 
But  God  has  made  of  one  blood,  or  race,  all  the 
nations  of  men;  and,  besides,  no  political  rights 
are  founded  by  the  law  of  nature  on  relations- 
of  blood,  kindred,  or  family.  Under  the  patri- 
archal or  tribal  system,  and,  to  some  extent^ 
under  feudalism,  these  relations  form  the- 
basis  of  government,  but  they  are  economical 
relations  rather  than  civil  or  political,  and,  un- 
der Christian  and  modern  civilization,  ^re  re- 
stricted to  the  household,  are  domestic  rela- 
tions, and  enter  not  the  state  or  body  politic, 
except  by  way  of  reminiscence  or  abuse.  They 
are  protected  by  the  state,  but  do  not  found 
or  constitute  it.  The  vicissitudes  of  time,  the 
revolutions  of  states  and  empires,  migration, 
conquest,  and  intermixture  of  families  and. 
races,  have  rendered  it  impracticable,  even  if 
it  were  desirable,  to  distribute  people  into  na- 
tions according  to  their  relations  of  blood  or 
descent. 


"204  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

There  is  no  civilized  nation  now  existing  that 
has  l>een  developed  from  a  common  ancestor 
this  side  of  Adam,  and  the  most  mixed  are  the 
most  civilized.  The  nearer  a  nation  approaches 
to  a  primitive  people  of  pure  unmixed  blood, 
the  farther  removed  it  is  from  civilization.  All 
civilized  nations  are  political  nations,  and  are 
founded  in  the  fact,  not  on  rights  antecedent 
to  the  fact.  A  hundred  or  more  lost  nationali- 
ties went  to  form  the  Roman  empire,  and  who 
-can  tell  us  how  many  layers  of  crushed  nation 
alities,  superposed  one  upon  another,  serve  for 
the  foundation  of  the  present  French,  English, 
Bussian,  Austrian,  or  Spanish  nationalities? 
What  other  title  to  independence  and  sover- 
eignty, than  the  fact,  can  you  plead  in  behalf 
•x)f  any  European  nation  ?  Every  one  has  ab- 
sorbed and  extinguished — no  one  can  say  how 
many — nationalities,  that  once  had  as  good  a 
right  to  be  as  it  has,  or  can  have.  "Whether 
those  nationalities  have  been  justly  extin- 
guished or  not,  is  no  question  for  the  statesman ; 
it  is  the  secret  of  Providence.  Failure  in  this 
world  is  not  always  a  proof  of  wrong ;  nor  suc- 
cess, of  right.  The  good  is  sometimes  over- 
borne, and  the  bad  sometimes  triumphs  ;  but  it 
it  is  consoling,  and  even  just,  to  believe  that  the 
good  offcener  triumphs  than  the  bad. 


THE  UNITED  STATES.        *  205> 

In  the  political  order,  the  fact,  under  God^ 
precedes  the  law.  The  nation  holds  not  from 
the  law,  but  the  law  holds  from  the  nation. 
Doubtless  the  courts  of  every  civilized  nation 
recognize  and  apply  both  the  law  of  nature  and 
the  law  of  nations,  but  only  on  the  ground  that 
they  are  included,  or  are  presumed  to  be  in- 
cluded, in  the  national  law,  or  jurisprudence. 
Doubtless,  too,  the  nation  holds  from  God,  un- 
de.r  the  law  of  natm*e,  but  only  by  virtue  of 
the  fact  that  it  is  a  nation;  and  when  it  is  a 
nation  dependent  on  no  other,  it  holds  from 
God  all  the  rights  and  powers  of  any  indepen- 
dent sovereign  nation.  There  is  no  right  behind 
the  fact  needed  to  legalize  the  fact,  or  to  put 
the  nation  that  is  in  fact  a  nation  in  posses- 
sion of  full  national  rights.  In  the  case  of  a 
new  nation,  or  people,  lately  an  integral  part 
of  another  people,  or  subject  to  another  peo- 
ple, the  right  of  the  prior  sovereign  must  be 
extinguished  indeed,  but  the  extinction  of 
that  right  is  necessary  to  complete  the  fact, 
which  otherwise  would  be  only  an  initial, 
inchoate  fact,  not  a  fait  accompli.  But  that 
right  ceases  when  its  clainiant,  willingly  or 
unwillingly,  formally  or  virtually,  abandons  it ; 
and  he  does  so  when  he  practically  abandons 
the  struggle,  and  shows  no  ability  or  intention 


'206  *  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

•of  soon  renewing  it  with  any  reasonable  pros- 
pect of  success. 

The  notion  of  right,  independent  of  the  fact 
^ss  applied  to  sovereignty,  is  founded  in  error. 
Empty  titles  to  states  and  kingdoms  are  of  no 
validity.  The  sovereignty  is,  under  God,  in  the 
"nation,  and  the  title  and  the  possession  are  in- 
separable. The  title  of  the  Palaeologi  to  the 
Roman  Empire  of  the  East,  of  the  king  of  Sicily, 
the  king  of  Sardinia,  or  the  king  of  Spain — for 
they  are  all  claimants — to  the  kingdom  of 
Jerusalem  founded  by  Godfrey  and  his  crusa- 
ders, of  the  Stuarts  to  the  thrones  of  England, 
Ireland,  and  Scotland,  or  of  the  Bourbons  to  the 
throne  of  France,  are  vacated  and  not  worth  the 
parchment  on  which  they  are  engrossed.  The 
•contrary  opinion,  so  generally  entertained,  be- 
longs to  barbarism,  not  to  civilization.  It  is  in 
modern  society  a  relic  of  feudalism,  which  places 
the  state  in  the  government,  and  makes  the  gov 
ernment  a  private  estate — a  private,  and  not  a 
;public  right — a  right  to  govern  the  public,  not  a 
right  to  govern  held  from  or  by  the  public. 

The  proprietor  may  be  dispossessed  in  fact 
■of  his  estate  by  violence,  by  illegal  or  unjust 
means,  without  losing  his  right,  and  another 
may  usurp  it,  occupy  it,  and  possess  it  in  fact 
\without  acquiring  any  right  or  legal  title  to  it. 


THE  UNETBD  STATES.  207 

The  man  who  holds  the  legal  title  has  the  right 
to  oust  him  and  re-enter  upon  his  estate  when- 
ever able  to  do  so.     Here,  in  the  economical 
order,  the  fact  and  the  right  are  distinguish- 
able, and  the  actual  occupant  may  be  required 
to  show  his  title-deeds.     Holding  sovereignty 
to  be  a  private  estate,  the  feudal  lawyers  very 
properly  distinguish  between  governments  de 
facto  and  governments  dejure,  and  argue  very 
logically  that  violent  dispossession  of  a  prince 
does  not  invalidate  his  title.     But  sovereignty, 
it  has  been  shown,  is  not  in  the  government, 
but  in  the  state,  and  the  state  is  inseparable 
from  the  public  domain.     The  people  organized 
-and  held  by  the  domain  or  national  territory, 
are,  under  God,  the  sovereign  nation,  and  remain 
60  as  long  as  the  nation  subsists  without  sub- 
jection to  another.     The  government,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  state  or  nation,  has  only  a 
delegated  authority,  governs  only  by  a  commis- 
sion from  the  nation.     The  revocation  of  the 
commission  vacates  its  title  and  extinguishes 
its  rights.     The  nation  is  always  sovereign,  and 
every  organic  people  fixed  to  the  soil,  and  ac- 
tually independent  of  every  other,  is  a  nation. 
There  can  then  be  no  independent  nation  de 
facto  that  is  not  an  independent  nation  de  jwre^ 
nor  dejure  that  is  not  de  facto.    The  moment  a 


208  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

people  cease  to  be  an  independent  nation  in 
fact,  they  cease  to  be  sovereign,  and  the  moment 
they  become  in  fact  an  independent  nation,  they 
are  so  of  right.  Hence  in  the  political  order 
the  fact  and  the  right  are  born  and  expire  to- 
gether ;  and  when  it  is  proved  that  a  people  are 
in  fact  an  independent  nation,  there  is  no  ques- 
tion to  be  asked  as  to  their  right  to  be  such  nation. 
Id  the  case  of  the  United  States  there  is  only 
the  question  of  fact.  If  they  are  in  fact  one 
people  they  are  so  in  right,  whatever  the 
opinions  and  theories  of  statesmen,  or  even  the 
decisions  of  courts ;  for  the  courts  hold  from 
the  national  authority,  and  the  theories  and 
opinions  of  statesmen  may  be  erroneous.  Cer- 
tain it  is  that  the  States  in  the  American  Union 
have  never  existed  and  acted  as  severally  sovei> 
eign  states.  Prior  to  independence,  they  were 
colonies  under  the  sovereignty  of  Great  Britain, 
and  since  independence  they  have  existed  and 
acted  only  as  states  united.  The  colonists,  be- 
fore separation  and  independence,  were  British 
subjects,  and  whatever  rights  the  colonies  had 
they  held  by  charter  or  concession  from  the 
British  crown.  The  colonists  never  pretended 
to  be  other  than  British  subjects,  and  the  alleged 
ground  of  their  complaint  against  the  mother 
country  was  not  that  she  had  violated  their 


THE  UNITED  STATES.  209 

natural  rights  as  men,  but  their  rights  as  British 
subjects — rights,  as  contended  by  the  colonists, 
secured  by  the  English  constitution  to  all  Eng- 
lishmen or  British  subjects.  The  denial  to  them 
of  these  common  rights  of  Englishmen  they 
called  tyranny,  and  they  defended  themselves  in 
throwing  off  their  allegiance  to  George  m., 
on  the  ground  that  he  had,  in  their  regard, 
become  a  tyrant,  and  the  tyranny  of  the  prince 
absolves  the  subject  from  his  allegiance. 

In  the  Declaration  of  Independence  they  de- 
clared themselves  independent  states  indeed, 
but  not  severally  independent.  The  declara- 
tion was  not  made  by  the  states  severally,  but 
by  the  states  jointly,  as  the  United  States. 
They  unitedly  declared  their  independence ; 
they  carried  on  the  war  for  independence,  won 
it,  and  were  acknowledged  by  foreign  powers 
and  by  the  mother  country  as  the  United 
States,  not  as  severally  independent  sovereign 
states.  Severally  they  have  never  exercised  the 
fall  powers  of  sovereign  states ;  they  have  had 
no  flag — symbol  of  sovereignty — recognized  by 
foreign  powers,  have  made  no  foreign  treaties, 
held  no  foreign  relations,  had  no  commerce 
foreign  or  interstate,  coined  no  money,  entered 
into  no  alliances  or  confederacies  with  foreign 
states  or  with  one  another,  and  in  several  re- 

16 


210  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

spects  have  been  more  restricted  in  their  powers 
in  the  Union  than  they  were  as  British  colonies. 

Colonies  ai*e  initial  or  inchoate  states,  and 
become  complete  states  by  declaring  and  win- 
ning their  independence ;  and  if  the  English 
colonies,  now  the  United  States,  had  separately 
declared  and  won  their  independence,  they 
would  unquestionably  have  become  separately 
independent  states,  each  invested  by  the  law 
of  nature  with  all  the  rights  and  powers  of  a 
sovereign  nation.  But  they  did  not  do  this. 
They  declared  and  won  their  independence 
jointly,  and  have  since  existed  and  exercised 
sovereignty  only  as  states  united,  or  the  United 
States,  that  is,  states  sovereign  in  their  union, 
but  not  in  their  separation.  This  is  of  itself 
decisive  of  the  whole  question. 

But  the  colonists  have  not  only  never  exer- 
cised the  full  powers  of  sovereignty  save  as 
citizens  of  states  united,  therefore  as  one  peo- 
ple, but  they  were,  so  far  as  a  people  at  all,  one 
people  even  before  independence.  The  colo- 
nies were  all  erected  and  endowed  with  their 
rights  and  powers  by  one  and  the  same  national 
authority,  and  the  colonists  were  subjects  of 
one  and  the  same  national  sovereign.  Mi*. 
Quincy  Adams,  who  almost  alone  among  our 
prominent  statesmen  maintains  the  unity  of 


THE  UNITED  STATES.  211 

the  colonial  people,  adds  indeed  to  their  sub- 
jection to  the  same  sovereign  authority,  com- 
munity of  origin,  of  language,  manners,  customs, 
and  law.  All  these,  except  the  last,  or  com- 
mon law,  may  exist  without  national  unity  in 
the  modern  political  sense  of  tlie  term  nation. 
The  English  common  law  was  recognized  by 
the  colonial  courts,  and  in  force  in  all  the  colo- 
nies, not  by  virtue  of  colonial  legislation,  but 
by  virtue  of  English  authority,  as  expressed  in 
English  jurisprudence.  The  colonists  were 
under  the  Common  Law,  because  they  were 
Englishmen,  and  subjects  of  the  English  sover- 
eign. This  proves  that  they  were  really  one 
people  with  the  English  people,  though  exist- 
ing in  a  state  of  colonial  dependence,  and  not  a 
separate  people  having  nothing  politically  in 
common  with  them  but  in  the  accident  of  hav- 
ing the  same  royal  person  for  their  king.  The 
union  with  the  mother  country  was  national, 
not  personal,  as  was  the  union  existing  be- 
tween England  and  Hanover,  or  that  still  ex- 
isting between  the  empire  of  Austria,  formerly 
Germany,  and  the  kingdom  of  Hungary ;  and 
hence  the  British  parliament  claimed,  and  not 
illegally,  the  right  to  tax  the  colonies  for  the 
support  of  the  empire,  and  to  bind  them  in  all 
cases  whatsoever — a  claim  the  colonies  them- 


213  THE  AMERICAif  REPUBLIC. 

selves  admitted  in  principle  by  recognizing  and 
observing  the  British  navigation  laws.  The 
people  of  the  several  colonies  being  really  one 
people  before  independence,  in  the  sovereignty 
of  the  mother  country,  must  be  so  still,  unless 
they  have  since,  by  some  valid  act,  divided 
themselves  or  been  divided  into  separate  arid 
independent  states. 

The  king,  say  the  jurists,  never  dies,  ai\d  the 
heralds  cry,  "  The  king  is  dead !  Live  the 
king !"  Sovereignty  never  lapses,  is  never  in 
abeyance,  and  the  moment  it  ceases  in  one  peo- 
ple it  is  renewed  in  another.  The  British  sov- 
ereignty ceased  in  the  colonies  with  indepen- 
dence, and  the  American  took  its  place.  Did 
the  sovereignty,  which  before  independence 
was  in  Great  Britain,  pass  from  Great  Britain 
to  the  States  severally,  or  to  the  States  united  ? 
It  might  have  passed  to  them  severally,  but  did 
it  ?  There  is  no  question  of  law  or  antecedent 
right^in  the  case,  but  a  simple  question  of  fact, 
and  the  fact  is  determined  by  determining  who 
it  was  that  assumed  it,  exercised  it,  and  has 
continued  to  exercise  it.  As  to  this  there  is  no 
doubt.  The  sovereignty  as  a  fact  has  been  as- 
sumed and  exercised  by  the  United  States,  the 
States  united,  and  never  by  the  States  sepa- 
rately, or  severally.     Then  as  a  fact  the  sever* 


•  THE  UNITED  STATER  213 

eignty  tliat  before  independence  was  in  Great 
Britain,  passed  on  independence  to  the  States 
united,  and  reappears  in'  all  its  vigor  in  tlie 
United  States,  the  only  successor  to  Great 
Britain  known  to  or  recognized  by  the  civil- 
ized world. 

As  the  colonial  people  were,  though  distrib- 
uted in  distinct  colonies,  still  one  people,  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  though  distributed 
into  distinct  and  mutually  independent  States, 
are  yet  one  sovereign  people,  therefore  a  sover- 
eign state  or  nation,  and  not  a  simple  league 
or  confederacy  of  nations. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  all  the  powers  exer- 
cised by  the  General  Government,  though  em- 
bracing all  foreign  relations  and  all  general 
interests  and  relations  of  all  the  States,  might 
have  been  exercised  by  it  under  the  authority 
of  a  mutual  compact  of  the  several  States,  and 
practically  the  difference  between  the  compact 
theory  and  the  national  view  would  be  very 
little,  unless  in  cases  like  that  of  secession.  On 
the  supposition  that  the  American  people  are 
one  political  people,  the  government  would 
have  the  right  to  treat  secession,  in  the  sense  in 
which  the  seceders  understand  it,  as  rebellion, 
and  to  suppress  it  by  employing  all  the  physi- 
cal force  at  its  command ;  but  on  the  compact 


214'  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

theory  it  would  have  no  such  right.  But  the 
question  now  under  discussion  turns  simply 
on  what  has  been  and  is  the  historical  fact. 
Before  the  States  could  enter  into  the  compact 
and  delegate  sovereign  powers  to  the  Union, 
they  must  have  severally  possessed  them.  It 
is  historically  certain  that  they  did  not  possess 
them  before  independence ;  they  did  not  obtain 
them  by  independence,  for  they  did  not  sever* 
ally  succeed  to  the  British  sovereignty,  to  which 
they  succeeded  only  as  States  united.  When, 
then,  and  by  what  means  did  they  or  could 
they  become  severally  sovereign  States  ?  The 
United  States  having  succeeded  to  the  British 
sovereignty  in  the  Anglo-American  colonies, 
they  came  into  possession  of  full  national  sover- 
eignty, and  have  alone  held  and  exercised  it 
ever  since  independence  became  a  fact.  The- 
States  severally  succeeding  only  to  the  colonies,, 
never  held,  and  have  never  been  competent  to 
delegate  sovereign  powers. 

The  old  Articles  of  Confederation,  it  is  con- 
ceded, were  framed  on  the  assumption  that  the- 
States  are  severally  sovereign ;  but  the  several 
States,  at  the  same  time,  were  regarded  as  form- 
ing one  nation,  and,  though  divided  into  sep- 
arate States,  the  people  were  regarded  as  on& 
people.      The  Legislature  of  New  York,   as- 


THE  UNITED  STATES  216 

early  as  1782,  calls  for  an  essential  change  in 
tlie  Articles  of  Confederation,  as  proved  to  be 
inadequate  to  secure  the  peace,  security,  and 
prosperity  of  "  the  nation."  All  the  proceedings 
that  preceded  and  led  to  the  call  of  the  conven- 
tion of  1787  were  based  on  the  assumption  that 
the  people  of  the  United  States  were  one  peo- 
ple. The  States  were  called  united^  not  con- 
federated States,  even  in  the  very  Articles  of 
Confederation  themselves,  and  officially  the 
United  States  were  called  "  the  Union."  That 
the  united  colonies  by  independence  became 
united  States,  and  formed  really  one  and  only 
one  people,  was  in  the  thought,  the  belief,  the 
instinct  of  the  great  mass  of  the  people.  They 
acted  as  they  existed  through  State  as  they  had 
previously  acted  through  colonial  organization, 
for  in  throwing  off  the  British  authority  there 
was  no  other  organization  through  which  they 
could  act.  The  States,  or  people  of  the  States, 
severally  sent  their  delegates  to  the  Congress 
of  the  United  States,  and  these  delegates 
adopted  the  rule  of  voting  in  Congress  by 
States,  a  rule  that  might  be  revived  without 
detriment  to  national  unity.  Nothing  was 
more  natural,  then,  than  that  Congress,  com- 
posed of  delegates  elected  or  appointed  by 
States,  should  draw  up  articles  of  confederation 


216  THE  AMEEICAN  REPUBLIC. 

rather  than  articles  of  union,  in  order,  if  for  no 
other  reason,  to  conciliate  the  smaller  States, 
and  to  prevent  their  jealousy  of  the  larger 
States  such  as  Virginia,  Massachusetts,  and 
Pennsylvania. 

Moreover,  the  Articles  of  Confederation  were 
drawn  up  and  adopted  during  the  transition 
from  colonial  dependence  to  national  independ- 
ence. Independence  was  declared  in  1776,  but 
it  was  not  a  fact  till  1782,  when  the  pre- 
liminary treaty  acknowledging  it  was  signed 
at  Paris.  Till  then  the  United  States  were  not 
an  independent  nation ;  they  were  only  a  people 
struggling  to  become  an  independent  nation. 
Prior  to  that  preliminary  treaty,  neither  the 
Union  nor  the  States  severally  were  sovereign. 
The  articles  were  agreed  on  in  Congress  in 
1777,  but  they  were  not  ratified  by  all  the 
States  till  May,  1781,  and  in  1782  the  move- 
ment was  commenced  in  the  Legislature  of  New 
York  for  their  amendment.  Till  the  organiza- 
tion under  the  constitution  ordained  by  the 
people  of  the  United  States  in  1787,  and  which 
went  into  operation  in  1789,  the  United  States 
had  in  reality  only  a  provisional  government, 
and  it  was  not  till  then  that  the  national  gov- 
ernment was  definitively  organized,  and  the 
line  of  demarcation  between  the  General  Gov- 


THE  UNITED  STATES.  217 

■ernment  and  tlie  particular  State  governments 
was  fixed. 

The  Confederation  was  an  acknowledged  faD- 
ure,  and  was  rejected  by  the  American  people, 
precisely  "because  it  was  not  in  harmony  with 
the  unwritten  or  Providential  constitution  of 
the  nation ;  and  it  was  not  in  harmony  with 
that  constitution  precisely  because  it  recognized 
the  States  as  severally  sovereign,  and  substituted 
confederation  for  union.  The  failure  of  con- 
federation and  the  success  of  union  are  ample 
proofs  of  the  unity  of  the  American  nation. 
The  instinct  of  unity  rejected  State  sovereignty 
in  1787  as  it  did  in  1861.  The  first  and  the 
last  attempt  to  establish  State  sovereignty  have 
failed,  and  the  failure  vindicates  the  fact  that 
the  sovereignty  is  in  the  States  united,  not  in 
the  States  severally. 


218  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLia 


CHAPTER  X 

CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES: 

The  constitution  of  the  United  States  is  two- 
fold, written  and  unwritten,  the  constitution  of 
the  people  and  the  constitution  of  the  govern- 
ment. 

The  written  constitution  is  simply  a  law  or- 
dained by  the  nation  or  people  instituting  and 
organizing  the  government ;  the  unwritten  con- 
stitution is  the  real  or  actual  constitution  of  the 
people  as  a  state  or  sovereign  community,  and 
constituting  them  such  or  such  a  state.  It  is 
Providential,  not  made  by  the  nation,  but  born 
with  it.  The  written  constitution  is  made  and 
ordained  by  the  sovereign  power,  and  presup- 
poses that  power  as  already  existing  and  con- 
stituted. 

The  unwritten  or  Providential  constitution 
of  the  United  States  is  peculiar,  and  difficult  to- 
understand,  because  incapable  of  being  fully 
explained  by  analogies  borrowed  from  any 
other   state    historically  known,  or  described 


CONSTITUTION  OP  THE  UNITED  STATES.  21^ 

by  political  philosophers.  It  belongs  to  ther 
Graeco-Roman  family,  and  is  republican  as  dis* 
tinguished  from  despotic  constitutions,  but  it 
comes  under  the  head  of  neither  monarchical 
nor  aristocratic,  neither  democratic  nor  mixed 
constitutions,  and  creates  a  state  which  is 
neither  a  centralized  state  nor  a  confederacy. 
The  difficulty  of  understanding  it  is  augmented 
by  the  peculiar  use  under  it  of  the  word  state,. 
which  does  not  in  the  American  system  meaa 
a  sovereign  community  or  political  society  com- 
plete in  itself,  like  France,  Spain,  or  Prussia,, 
nor  yet  a  political  society  subordinate  to  another 
political  society  and  dependent  on  it.  The- 
American  States  are  all  sovereign  States  united,^ 
but,  disunited,  are  no  States  at  all.  The  rights^ 
and  powers  of  the  States  are  not  derived  from 
the  United  States,  nor  the  rights  and  powers 
of  the  United  States  derived  from  the  States. 

The  simple  fact  is,  that  the  political  or  sover- 
eign people  of  the  United  States  exists  as  united. 
States,  and  only  as  united  States.  The  Union 
and  the  States  are  coeval,  born  together,  and  ' 
can  exist  only  together.  Separation  is  dissolu- 
tion— the  death  of  both.  The  United  States 
are  a  state,  a  single  sovereign  state;  but  this- 
single  sovereign  state  consists  in  the  "union  and 
Bolidarity  of  States  instead  of  individuals.    The 


^20  THE  AMERICAN  REPDBLIO. 

Union  is  in  each  of  tlie  States,  and  each  of  the 
States  is  in  the  Union. 

It  is  necessaiy  to  distinguish  in  the  outset 
between  the  United  States  and  the  government 
of  the  United  States,  or  the  so-called  Federal 
government,  which  the  convention  refused,  con- 
trary to  its  first  intention  to  call  the  national 
government.  That  government  is  not  a  supreme 
national  government,  representing  all  the  powers 
of  the  United  States,  but  a  limited  government, 
restricted  by  its  constitution  to  certain  specific 
relations  and  interests.  The  United  States  are 
interior  to  that  government,  and  the  first  ques- 
tion to  be  settled  relates  to  their  internal  and 
inherent  Providential  constitution  ias  one  politi- 
cal people  or  sovereign  state.  The  written 
constitution,  in  its  preamble,  professes  to  be 
ordained  by  "We,  the  people  of  the  United 
States."  Who  are  this  people  ?  How  are  they 
constituted,  or  what  the  mode  and  conditions 
of  their  political  existence  ?  Are  they  the  peo- 
ple of  the  States  severally  ?  No ;  for  they  call 
themselves  the  people  of  the  United  States. 
Are  they  a  national  people,  really  existing  out- 
side and  independently  of  theii*  organization 
into  distinct  and  mutually  independent  States  ? 
No ;  for  they  define  themselves  to  be  the  peo- 
ple of  the  United  States.   If  they  had  considered 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.  321 

themselves  existing  as  States  only,  they  would 
have  said  "We,  the  States,"  and  if  independently 
of  State  organization,  they  would  have  said 
"  We,  the  people,"  do  ordain,  &c. 

The  key  to  the  mystery  is  precisely  in  this 
appellation  United  States,  which  is  not  the 
name  of  the  country,  for  its  distinctive  name 
is  America,  but  a  name  expressive  of  its 
political  organization.  In  it  there  are  no  sov- 
ereign people  without  States,  and  no  States 
without  union,  or  that  are  not  united  States. 
The  term  united  is  not  part  of  a  proper  name, 
but  is  simply  an  adjective  qualifying  States j 
and  has  its  full  and  proper  sense.  Hence  while 
the  sovereignty  is  and  must  be  in  the  States,  it  is 
in  the  States  united,  not  in  the  States  severally, 
precisely  as  we  have  found  the  sovereignty  of 
the  people  is  in  the  people  collectively  or  as 
society,  not  in  the  people  individually.  The  life 
is  in  the  body,  not  in  the  members,  though  the 
body  could  not  exist  if  it  had  no  members ;  so 
the  sovereignty  is  in  the  Union,  not  in  the  States 
severally;  but  there  could  be  no  sovereign 
union  without  the  States,  for  there  is  no  union 
where  there  is  nothing  united. 

This  is  not  a  theory  of  the  constitution,  but 
the  constitutional  fact  itself.  It  is  the  simple 
historical  feet  that  precedes  the  law  and  con- 


t222  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

stitutes  the  law-making  power.  The  people  of 
■the  United  States  are  one  people,  as  has  already 
been  proved :  they  were  one  people,  as  far  as  a 
people  at  all,  prior  to  independence,  because 
under  the  same  Common  Law  and  subject  to  the 
same  sovereign,  and  have  been  so  since,  for  as 
united  States  they  gained  their  independence 
and  took  their  place  among  sovereign  nations, 
and  as  united  States  they  have  possessed  and 
still  possess  the  government.  As  their  exist- 
ence before  independence  in  distinct  colonies 
did  not  prevent  their  unity,  so  their  existence 
since  in  distinct  States  does  not  hinder  them 
from  being  one  people.  The  States  severally 
simply  continue  the  colonial  organizations,  and 
united  they  hold  the  sovereignty  that  was 
originally  in  the  mother  country.  But  if  one 
people,  they  are  one  people  existing  in  distinct 
•State  organizations,  as  before  independence  they 
were  one  people  existing  in  distinct  colonial 
organizations.  This  is  the  original,  the  un- 
written, and  Providential  constitution  of  the 
people  of  the  United  States. 

This  constitution  is  not  conventional,  for  it 
existed  before  the  people  met  or  could  meet  in 
>convention.  They  have  not,  as  an  independent 
sovereign  people,  either  established  their  union, 
^r  distributed  themselves  into  distinct  and  mu- 


'CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.  223 

•tually  independent  States.  The  union  and  the 
distribution,  the  unity  and  the  distinction,  are 
both  original  in  their  constitution,  and  they 
were  born  United  States,  as  much  and  as  truly 
so  as  the  son  of  a  citizen  is  born  a  citizen,  or  as 
every  one  born  at  all  is  born  a  member  of  so- 
ciety, the  family,  the  tribe,  or  the  nation.  The 
Union  and  the  States  were  born  together,  are 
inseparable  in  their  constitution,  have  lived  and 
grown  up  together ;  no  serious  attempt  till  the 
late  secession  movement  has  been  made  to 
separate  them;  and  the  secession  movement, 
to  all  persons  who  knew  not  the  real  constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States,  appeared  sure  to  suc- 
ceed, and  in  fact  would  have  succeeded  if,  as 
the  secessionists  pretended,  the  Union  had  been, 
only  a  confederacy, .  and  the  States  had  been 
held  together  only  by  a  conventional  compact, 
and  not  by  a  real  and  living  bond  of  unity. 
The  popular  instinct  of  national  unity,  which 
seemed  so  weak,  proved  to  be  strong  enough  to 
defeat  the  secession  forcesj  to  trample  out  the 
confederacy,  and  maintain  the  imity  of  the  na 
tion  and  the  integrity  of  its  domain. 

The  people  can  act  only  as  they  exist,  as  they 
^are,  not  as  they  are  not.  Existing  originally 
only  as  distributed  in  distinct  and  mutually  in- 
dependent colonies,  they  could  at  first  act  only 


224  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

through  their  colonial  organizations,  and  after- 
ward only  through  their  State  organizations. 
The  colonial  people  met  in  convention,  in  the 
person  of  representatives  chosen  by  colonies, 
and  after  independence  in  the  person  of  repre- 
sentatives chosen  by  States.  Not  existing  outside 
of  the  colonial  or  State  organizations,  they  could 
not  act  outside  or  independently  of  them.  They 
chose  their  representatives  or  delegates  by  colo- 
nies or  States,  and  called  at  first  their  conven- 
tion a  Congress ;  but  by  an  instinct  surer  than 
their  deliberate  wisdom,  they  called  it  not  the 
Congress  of  the  confederate^  but  of  the  United 
States,  asserting  constitutional  unity  as  well  as 
constitutional  multiplicity.  It  is  true,  in  their 
first  attempt  to  organize  a  general  government, 
they  called  the  constitution  they  devised  Arti- 
cles of  Confederation,  but  only  because  they  had 
not  attained  to  full  consciousness  of  themselves; 
and  that  they  really  meant  union,  not  confede- 
ration, is  evident  from  their  adopting,  as  the 
official  style  of  the  nation  or  new  power,  v/nited, 
not  confederate  States. 

That  the  sovereignty  vested  in  the  States 
united,  and  was  represented  in  some  sort  by  the 
Congress,  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  the  sever- 
al States,  when  they  wished  to  adopt  State  con- 
stitutions in  place  of  colonial  charters,  felt  not 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.  225 

at  liberty  to  do  so  without  asting  and  obtain- 
ing the  permission  of  Congress,  as  the  elder 
Adams  informs  us  in  his  Diary,  kept  at  the 
time;  that  is,  they  asked  and  obtained  the 
e(juivalent  of  what  has  since,  in  the  case  of  or- 
ganizing new  States,  been  called  an  "  enabling 
act."  This  proves  that  the  States  did  not  regard 
themselves  as  sovereign  States  out  of  the  Union, 
but  as  completely  sovereign  only  in  it.  And 
this  again  proves  that  the  Articles  of  Confedersr 
tion  did  not  correspond  to  the  real,  living  con- 
stitution of  the  people.  Even  then  it  was  felt 
that  the  organization  and  constitution  of  a  State 
in  the  Union  could  be  regularly  effected  only 
by  the  permission  of  Congress ;  and  no  Territory 
can,  it  is  well  known,  regularly  organize  itself 
as  a  State,  and  adopt  a  State  constitution,  with- 
out an  enabling  act  by  Congress,  or  its  equiva- 
lent. 

New  States,  indeed,  have  been  organized  and 
been  admitted  into  the  Union  mthout  an  ena- 
bling act  of  Congress ;  but  the  case  of  Kansas,  if 
nothing  else,  proves  that  the  proceeding  is  irreg- 
ular, illicit,  invalid,  and  dangerous.  Congress, 
of  course,  can  condone  the  wrong  and  validate 
the  act,  but  it  were  better  that  the  act  should 
be  validly  done,  and  that  there  should  be  no 
wrong  to  condone.    Territories  have  organized 


230  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC 

as  States,  adopted  State  constitutions,  and  insti- 
tuted State  governments  under  what  has  been 
called  "  squatter  sovereignty ;"  but  such  sover- 
eignty has  no  existence,  because  sovereignty  is 
attached  to  the  domain ;  and  the  domain  is  in 
the  United  States.  It  is  the  offspring  of  that 
false  view  of  popular  sovereignty  which  places 
it  in  the  people  personally  or  generically,  irre- 
spective of  the  domain,  which  makes  sovereignty 
a  purely  personal  right,  not  a  right  fixed  to 
the  soil,  and  is  simply  a  return  to  the  bar- 
baric constitution  of  power.  In  all  civilized 
nations,  sovereignty  is  inseparable  from  the 
state,  and  the  state  is  inseparable  from  the 
domain.  The  will  of  the  people,  unless  they 
are  a  state,  is  no  law,  has  no  force,  binds  no- 
body, and  justifies  no  act. 

The  regular  process  of  forming  and  admitting 
new  States  explains  admirably  the  mutual  rela- 
tion of  the  Union  and  the  several  States.  The 
people  of  a  Territory  belonging  to  the  United 
States  or  included  in  the  public  domain  not 
yet  erected  into  a  State  and  admitted  into  the 
Union,  are  subjects  of  the  United  States,  with- 
out any  political  rights  whatever,  and,  though 
a  part  of  the  population,  are  no  part  of  the  sov- 
ereign people  of  the  United  States.  They  be- 
come a  part  of  that  people,  with  political  rights 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.  227 

and  franchises,  only  when  they  are  erected  into 
a  State,"  and  admitted  into  the  Union  as  one  of 
the  United  States.  They  may  meet  in  conven- 
tion, draw  up  and  adopt  a  constitution  declaring 
or  assuming  them  to  be  a  State,  elect  State 
officers;  senators,  and  representatives  in  the 
State  legislature,  and  representatives  and  sena- 
tors in  Congress,  but  they  are  not  yet  a  State, 
and  are,  as  before,  under  the  Territorial  govern- 
ment established  by  the  General  Government. 
It  does  not  exist  as  a  State  till  recognized  by 
Congress  and  admitted  into  the  Union.  The 
existence  of  the  State,  and  the  rights  and  powers 
of  the  people  within  th^  State,  depend  on  their 
being  a  State  in  the  Union,  or  a  State  united. 
Hence  a  State  erected  on  the  national  domain, 
but  itself  outside  of  the  Union,  is  not  an  inde- 
pendent foreign  State,  but  simply  no  State  at 
all,  in  any  sense  of  the  term.  As  there  is  no 
union  outside  of  the  States,  so  is  there  no  State 
outside  of  the  Union ;  and  to  be  a  citizen  either 
of  a  State  or  of  the  United  States,  it  is  necessary 
to  be  a  citizen  of  a  State,  and  of  a  State  in  the 
Union.  The  inhabitants  of  Territories  not  yet 
erected  into  States  are  subjects,  not  citizens — 
that  is,  not  citizens  with  political  rights.  The  sov- 
ereign people  are  not  the  people  outside  of  State 
organization,  nor  the  people  of  the  States  sever- 


228  THB  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

ally,  but  the  distinct  people  of  the  several  States 
united,  and  therefore  most  appropriately  called 
the  people  of  the  United  States. 

This  is  the  peculiarity  of  the  American  con- 
stitution, and  is  substantially  the  very  peculi- 
arity noted  and  dwelt  upon  by  Mr.  Madison  in 
his  raasteriy  letter  to  Edward  Everett,  published 
in  the  "North  American  Review,"  October,  1830. 

"  In  order  to  understand  the  true  character 
of  the  constitution  of  the  United  States,"  says 
Mr.  Madison,  "  the  error,  not  uncommon,  must 
be  avoided  of  viewing  it  through  the  medium 
either  of  a  consolidated  government  or  of  a 
confederated  government,  whilst  it  is  neither 
the  one  nor  the  other,  but  a  mixture  of  both. 
And  having,  in  no  model,  the  similitudes  and 
analogies  applicable  to  other  systems  of  govern- 
ment, it  must,  more  than  any  other,  be  its  own 
interpreter,  according  to  its  text  and  the  facts 
in  the  case. 

"  From  these  it  will  be  seen  that  the  charac- 
teristic peculiarities  of  the  constitution  are :  1. 
The  mode  of  its  formation.  2.  The  division  of 
the  supreme  powers  of  government  between  the 
States  in  their  united  capacity  and  the  States  in 
their  individual  capacities. 

"1.  It  was  formed  not  by  the  governments 
of  the  component  States,  as  the  Federal  Govern- 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.         229 

ment,  for  which  it  was  substituted,  was  formed ; 
nor  was  it  formed  by  a  majority  of  the  people 
of  the  United  States  as  a  single  community,  in 
the  manner  of  a  consolidated  government.  It 
was  formed  by  the  States ;  that  is,  by  the  peo- 
ple in  each  of  the  States,  acting  in  their  highest 
sovereign  capacity,  and  formed  consequently  by 
the  same  authority  which  formed  the  State  con- 
stitution. 

*'  Being  thus  derived  from  the  same  source  as 
the  constitutions  of  the  States,  it  has  within 
each  State  the  same  authority  as  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  State,  and  is  as  much  a  constitution 
in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term,  within  its  pre- 
scribed sphere,  as  the  constitutions  of  the  States 
are  within  their  respective  spheres ;  but  with 
this  obvious  and  essential  dilBference,  that,  being 
a,  compact  among  the  States  in  their  highest 
capacity,  and  constituting  the  people  thereof 
one  people  for  certain  purposes,  it  cannot  be 
altered  or  annulled  at  the  will  of  the  States  in- 
dividually, as  the  constitution  of  a  State  may 
be  at  its  individual  will. 

"  2.  And  that  it  divides  the  supreme  powers 
of  government  between  the  government  of  the 
United  States  and  the  governments  of  the  in- 
dividual States,  is  stamped  on  the  face  of  the 
instrument ;  the  powers  of  war  and  of  taxation. 


230  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

of  commerce  and  treaties,  and  other  enumerated 
powers  vested  in  the  government  of  the  LTnited 
States,  are  of  as  high  and  sovereign  a  character 
as  any  of  the  powers  reserved  to  the  State 
governments." 

Mr.  Jefferson,  Mr.  Webster,  Chancellor  Kent, 
Judge  Story,  and  nearly  all  the  old  Repub- 
licans, and  even  the  old  Federalists,  on  the 
question  as  to  what  is  the  actual  constitution 
of  the  United  States,  took  substantially  the 
same  view ;  but  they  all,  as  well  as  Mr.  Madi- 
son himself,  speak  of  the  written  constitution^ 
which  on  their  theory  has  and  can  have  only  a 
conventional  value.  Mr.  Madison  evidently 
recognizes  no  constitution  of  the  people  prior 
to  the  written  constitution,  from  which  the 
written  constitution,  or  the  constitution  of  the 
government,  deiives  all  its  force  and  vitality. 
The  organization  of  the  American  people,  which 
he  knew  well, — no  man  better, — and  which  he  so 
justly  characterizes,  he  supposes  to  have  been 
deliberately  formed  by  the  people  themselves,, 
through  the  convention — not  given  them  by 
Providence  as  their  original  and  inherent  con- 
stitution. But  this  was  merely  the  effect  of  the 
general  doctrine  which  he  had  adopted,  in  com- 
mon  with  nearly  all  his  contemporaries,  of  the 
origin  of  the  state  in  compact,  and   may  ba 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.         231 

eliminated  from  his  view  of  what  tlie  constitu- 
tion actually  is,  without  affecting  that  view 
itsel£ 

Mr.  Madison  lays  great  stress  on  the  fact 
that  though  the  constitution  of  the  Union  was 
formed  by  the  States,  it  was  formed,  not  by  the 
governments,  but  by  the  people  of  the  several 
States ;  but  this  makes  no  essential  difference, 
if  the  people  are  the  people  of  the  States,  and 
sovereign  in  their  severalty,  and  not  in  their 
union.  Had  it  been  fomied  by  the  State  gov- 
ernments with  the  acquiescence  of  the  people, 
it  would  have  rested  on  as  high  authority  as  if 
formed  by  the  people  of  the  State  in  conven- 
tion assembled.  The  only  difference  is,  that  if 
the  State  ratified  it  by  the  legislature,  she  could 
abrogate  it  by  the  legislature ;  if  in  convention, 
she  could  abrogate  it  only  in  convention.  Mr. 
Madison,  following  Mr.  Jefferson,  supposes  the 
constitution  makes  the  people  of  the  several 
States  one  people  for  certain  specific  purposes, 
and  leaves  it  to  be  supposed  that  in  regard  to 
all  other  matters,  or  in  all  other  relations,  they 
are  sovereign ;  and  hence  he  makes  the  govern- 
ment a  mixture  of  a  consolidated  government 
and  a  confederated  government,  but  neither  the 
one  nor  the  other  exclusively.  Say  the  people 
of  the  United  States  were  one  people  in  all 


232  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

respects,  and  under  a  government  which  is 
neither  a  consolidated  nor  a  confederated  gov- 
ernment, nor  yet  a  mixture  of  the  two,  but  a 
government  in  which  the  powers  of  government 
are  divided  between  a  general  government  and 
particular  governments,  each  emanating  from 
the  same  source,  and  you  will  have  the  simple 
fact,  and  precisely  what  Mr.  Madison  means, 
when  is  eliminated  what  is  derived  from  his 
theory  of  the  origin  of  government  in  compact. 
It  is  this  theory  of  the  conventional  origin  of 
the  constitution,  and  which  excludes  the  Provi- 
dential or  real  constitution  of  the  people,  that 
has  misled  him  and  so  many  other  eminent 
statesmen  and  constitutional  lawyers. 

The  convention  did  not  create  the  Union  or 
imite  the  States,  for  it  was  assembled  by  the 
authority  of  the  United  States  who  were  pres- 
ent in  it.  The  United  States  or  Union  existed 
before  the  convention,  as  the  convention  itself 
affirms  in  declaring  one  of  its  purposes  to  be 
"  to  provide  for  a  more  perfect  union^''  If  there 
had  been  no  union,  it  could  not  and  would  not 
have  spoken  of  providing  for  a  more  perfect 
union,  but  would  have  stated  its  purpose  to  be 
to  create  or  form  a  union.  The  convention  did 
not  form  the  Union,  nor  in  fact  provide  for  a 
more  perfect  union ;  it  simply  provided  for  the 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATEa         233 

more  perfect  representation  or  expression  in  the 
General  government  of  the  Union  already  exist- 
ing. The  convention,  in  common  vrith  the 
statesmen  at  the  time,  recognized  no  unwritten 
or  Providential  constitution  of  a  people,  and 
regarded  the  constitution  of  government  as 
the  constitution  of  the  state,  and  consequent- 
ly sometimes  put  the  state  for  the  government. 
In  interpreting  its  language,  it  is  necessary  to 
distinguish  between  its  act  and  its  theory.  Its 
act  is  law,  its  theory  is  not.  The  convention 
met,  among  other  things,  to  organize  a  govern- 
ment which  should-  more  perfectly  represent 
the  union  of  the  States  than  did  the  govern- 
ment created  by  the  Articles  of  Confederation. 
The  convention,  certainly,  professes  to  grant 
or  concede  powers  to  the  United  States,  and  to 
prohibit  powers  to  the  States;  but  it  simply 
puts  the  state  for  the  government.  The  pow- 
ers of  the  United  States  are,  indeed,  grants  or 
trusts,  but  from  God  through  the  law  of  nature, 
and  are  grants,  trusts,  or  powers  always  con- 
ceded to  every  nation  or  sovereign  people.  But 
none  of  them  are  grants  from  the  convention. 
The  powers  the  convention  grants  or  concedes 
to  the  United  States  are  powers  granted  or  con- 
ceded by  the  United  States  to  the  General  gov- 
ernment it  assembled  to  organize  and  establish, 


234  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

which,  as  it  extends  over  the  whole  population 
and  territory  of  the  Union,  and,  as  the  interests 
it  18  charged  with  I'elate  to  all  the  States  in 
common,  or  to  the  people  as  a  whole,  is  mth 
no  great  impropriety  called  the  government  of 
the  United  States,  in  contradistinction  from  the 
State  governments,  which  have  each  only  a 
local  jurisdiction.  But  the  more  exact  term 
is,  for  the  one,  the  general  government,, 
and  for  the  others,  particular  governments,  as 
having  charge  only  of  the  particular  interests 
of  the.  State;  and  the  two  together  consti- 
tute the  government  of .  the  United  States^ 
or  the  complete  national  government;  for 
neither  the  General  government  nor  the  State 
government  is  complete  in  itself.  The  conven- 
tion developed  a  general  government,  and  pre- 
scribed its  powers,  and  fixed  their  limits  and 
extent,  as  well  as  the  bounds  of  the  powers 
of  the  State  or  particular  governments ;  but 
they  are  the  United  States  assembled  in  con- 
vention that  do  all  this,  and,  therefore,  strictly 
speaking,  no  powers  are  conceded  to  the  United 
States  that  they  did  not  previously  possess. 
The  convention  itself,  in  the  constitution  it  or- 
dained, defines  very  clearly  from  whom  the 
General  government  holds  its  powers.  It  holds 
them,  as  we  have  seen,  from  "  We,  the  people 


CONSTITUTION  OP  THE  UNITED  STATES.         235* 

of  the  United  States ;"  not  we,  the  people  of  the 
States  severally,  but  of  the  States  united.  If 
it  had  meant  the  States  severally,  it  would 
have  said,  We,  the  States;  if  it  had  recog- 
nized and  meant  the  population  of  the  country 
irrespective  of  its  organization  into  particu- 
lar States,  it  would  have  said  simply.  We,  the 
people.  By  saying  "We,  the  people  of  the 
United  States,"  it  placed  the  sovereign  power 
where  it  is,  in  the  people  of  the  States  united. 
The  convention  ordains  that  the  powers  not 
conceded  to  the  General  government  or  prohib-^ 
ited  to  the  particular  governments, "  are  reserved 
to  the  States  respectively,  or  to  the  people."^ 
But  the  powers  reserved  to  the  States  severally 
are  reserved  by  order  of  the  United  States,  and 
the  powers  not  so  reserved  are  reserved  to  the 
people.  What  people  ?  The  first  thought  is  that 
they  are  the  people  of  the  States  severally ;  for 
the  constitution  understands  by  people  the 
state  as  distinguished  from  the  state  govern- 
ment ;  but  if  this  had  been  its  meaning  in  this 
place,  it  would  have  said,  "  are  reserved  to  the 
States  respectively,  or  to  the  people  "  thereof.  As- 
it  does  not  say  so,  and  does  not  define "  the  peo- 
ple it  means,  it  is  necessary  to  understand  by 
them  the  people  called  in  the  preamble  "  the- 
people  of  the  United  States."     This  is  coa- 


236  THE  AMERICAN  BEPDBLIO. 

firmed  by  the  authority  reserved  to  amend  the 
constitution,  which  certainly  is  not  reserved 
to  the  States  severally,  but  necessarily  to  the 
power  that  ordains  the  constitution — "  We,  the 
people  of  the  United  States."  No  power  ex- 
cept that  which  ordains  is  or  can  be  compe- 
tent to  amend  a  constitution  of  government. 
The  particular  mode  prescribed  by  the  con- 
vention in  which  the  constitution  of  the  gov- 
emment  may  be  amended  has  no  bearing  on 
the  present  argument,  because  it  is  prescribed 
by  the  States  united,  not  severally,  and  the 
power  to  amend  is  evidently  reserved,  not 
indeed  to  the  General  government,  but  to  the 
United  States ;  for  the  ratification  by  any  State 
or  Territory  not  in  the  Union  counts  for  nothing. 
The  States  united,  can,  in  the  way  prescribed, 
give  more  or  less  power  to  the  General  govern- 
ment, and  reserve  more  or  less  power  to  the 
States  individually.  The  so-called  reserved 
powers  are  really  reserved  to  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  who  can  make  such  disposition 
of  them  as  seems  to  them  good. 

The  conclusion,  then,  that  the  General  gov- 
ernment  holds  from  the  States  united,  not  from 
the  States  severally,  is  not  invalidated  by  the 
fact  that  its  constitution  was  completed  only 
by  the  ratification  of  the  States  in  their  individ 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.         237 

ual  capacity.  The  ratification  was  made  neces- 
sary by  the  will  of  the  people  in  convention 
assembled ;  but  the  convention  was  competent 
to  complete  it  and  put  it  in  force  without  that 
ratification,  had  it  so  willed.  The  general  prac- 
tice under  the  American  system  is  for  the 
convention  to  submit  the  constitution  it  has 
agreed  on  to  the  people,  to  be  accepted  or  re- 
jected by  a  plehiscitum;  but  such  submission, 
though  it  may  be  wise  and  prudent,  is  not 
necessary.  The  convention  is  held  to  be  the 
convention  of  the  people,  and  to  be  clothed 
with  the  full  authority  of  the  sovereign  people, 
and  it  is  in  this  that  it  differs  from  the  congress 
or  the  legislature.  It  is  not  a  congress  of  dele- 
gates or  ministers  who  are  obliged  to  act  under 
instructions,  to  report  their  acts  to  their  re- 
spective sovereigns  for  approval  or  rejection ;  it 
is  itself  sovereign,  and  may  do  whatever  the 
people  themselves  can  do.  There  is  no  neces- 
sity for  it  to  appeal  to  a  plebiscitum  to  com- 
plete its  acts.  That  the  convention,  on  the 
score  of  prudence,  is  wise  in  doing  so,  nobody 
questions;  but  the  convention  is  always  com- 
petent, if  it  chooses,  to  ordain  the  constitution 
without  appeal.  The  power  competent  to  or- 
dain the  constitution  is  always  competent  to 
change,  modify,  or  amend   it.      That   amend- 


238  THE  AMEEIOAN  REPUBLIC. 

ments  to  the  constitution  of  the  governm-  «<c 
-can  be  adopted  only  by  being  proposed  bj  a 
convention  of  all  the  States  in  the  Union,  or  oj 
being  proposed  by  a  two-thirds  vote  of  boch 
houses  of  Congress,  and  ratified  by  three- 
fourths  of  the  States,  is  simply  a  conventional 
ordinance,  which  the  convention  can  change  at 
its  pleasure.  It  proves  nothing  as  it  stands  but 
the  will  of  the  convention. 

The  term  ratification  itself,  because  the  term 
commonly  used  in  reference  to  treaties  between 
sovereign  powers,  has  been  seized  on,  since 
sometimes  used  by  the  convention,  to  prove 
that  the  constitution  emanates  from  the  States 
severally,  and  is  a  treaty  or  compact  between 
sovereign  states,  not  an  organic  or  fundamental 
law  ordained  by  a  single  sovereign  will;  but 
this  argument  is  inadmissible,  because,  as  we 
have  just  seen,  the  convention  is  competent  to 
ordain  the  constitution  without  submitting  it 
for  ratification,  and  because  the  convention  uses 
sometimes  the  word  adopt  instead  of  the  word 
ratify.  That  the  framers  of  the  constitution 
held  it  to  be  a  treaty,  compact,  or  agreement 
among  sovereigns,  there  is  no  doubt,  for  they 
so  held  in  regard  to  all  constitution  of  govern- 
ment; and  there  is  just  as  little  doubt  that  they 
intended  to  constitute,  and  firmly  believed  that 


CONSTITUTION  OP  THE  UNITED  STATES.         239 

they  were  constituting  a  real  government.  Mr. 
Madison's  authority  on  this  point  is  conclusive. 
They  unquestionably  regarded  the  States,  prior 
to  the  ratification  of  the  constitution  they  pro- 
posed, as  severally  sovereign,  as  they  were  de- 
clared to  be  by  the  old  Articles  of  Confederation, 
but  they  also  believed  that  all  individuals  are 
sovereign  prior  to  the  fonnation  of  civil  society. 
Yet  very  few,  if  any,  of  them  believed  that  they 
remained  sovereign  after  the  adoption  of  the  con- 
stitution ;  and  we  may  attribute  to  their  belief 
in  the  conventional  origin  of  all  government, — 
the  almost  universal  belief  of  the  time  among 
political  philosophers, — the  little  account  which 
they  made  of  the  historical  facts  that  prove  that 
the  people  of  the  United  States  were  always  one 
people,  and  that  the  States  never  existed  as 
severally  sovereign  states. 

The  political  philosophers  of  the  present  day 
do  not  generally  accept  the  theory  held  by 
our  fathers,  and  it  has  been  shown  in  these 
pages  to  be  unsound  and  incompatible  with 
the  essential  nature  of  government.  The  states- 
men of  the  eighteenth  centuiy  believed  that  the 
state  is  derived  from  the  people  individually, 
and  held  that  sovereignty  is  created  by  the 
people  in  convention.  The  rights  and  powers 
of  the  state,  they  held,  were  made  up  of  th** 


240  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBUO. 

'rights  lield  by  individuals  under  the  law  of  na- 
ture, and  which  the  individuals  surrendered  to 
civil  society  on  its  formation.  So  they  sup- 
posed that  independent  sovereign  states  might 
meet  in  convention,  mutually  agree  to  surrender 
a  portion  of  their  rights,  organize  their  sur- 
rendered rights  into  a  real  government,  and 
leave  the  convention  shorn,  at  least,  of  a  portion 
of  their  sovereignty.  This  doctrine  crops  out 
everywhere  in  the  writings  of  the  elder  Adams^ 
and  is  set  forth  with  rare  ability  by  Mr.  Web- 
ster, in  his  great  speech  in  the  Senate  against 
the  State  sovereignty  doctrine  of  General  Hayne 
and  Mr.  Calhoun,  which  won  for  him  the 
honorable  title  of  Expounder  of  the  Constitu- 
tion— and  expound  it  he,  no  doubt,  did  in  the 
sense  of  its  framers.  He  boldly  concedes  that 
prior  to  the  adoption  of  the  constitution,  the 
people  of  the  United  States  were  severally  sov- 
ereign states,  but  by  the  constitution  they  were 
made  one  sovereign  political  community  or 
people,  and  that  the  States,  though  retaining 
certain  rights,  have  merged  their  several  sover- 
eignty in  the  Union. 

The  subtle  mind  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  who  did 
not  hold  that  a  state  can  originate  in  com- 
pact, proved  to  Mr.  Webster  that  his  theory- 
could  not  stand;  that,  if  the  States  went  into 


CONSTITUTION  OP  THE  UNITED  STATES.  241 

the  convention  sovereign  States,  they  came  out 
of  it  sovereign  States ;  and  that  the  constitution 
they  formed  could  from  the  nature  of  the  case 
be  only  a  treaty,  compact,  or  agreement  be- 
tween sovereigns.  It  could  create  an  agency, 
but  not  a  government.  The  sovereign  States 
could  only  delegate  the  exercise  of  their  sov- 
ereign powers,  not  the  sovereign  powers 
themselves.  The  States  could  agree  to  exercise 
certain  specific  powers  of  sovereignty  only  in 
common,  but  the  force  and  vitality  of  the 
agreement  depended  on  the  States,  parties  to 
the  agreement,  retaining  respectively  their 
sovereignty.  Hence,  he  maintained  that  sover- 
eignty, after  as  before  the  convention,  vested 
in  the  States  severally.  Hence  State  sover- 
eignty, and  hence  his  doctrine  that  in  all  cases 
that  cannot  come  properly  before  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  for'  decision,  each 
State  is  free  to  decide  for  itself,  on  which  he 
based  the  right  of  nullification,  or  the  State 
veto  of  acts  of  Congress  whose  constitution- 
ality the  State  denies.  Mr.  Calhoun  was  him- 
self no  secessionist,  but  he  laid  down  the  prem- 
ises from  which  secession  is  the  logical  deduc- 
tion ;  and  large  numbers  of  young  men,  among 
the  most  open,  the  most  generous,  and  the  most 
patriotic  in  the  country,  adopted  his  premises, 
19 


343  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

witliout  being  aware  of  this  fact  any  more  tLfin 
he  himself  was,  and  who  have  been  behind 
none  in  their  loyalty  to  the  Union,  and  in 
their  sacrifices  to  sustain  it,  in  the  late  rebel- 
lion. 

The  formidable  rebellion  which  is  now  hap- 
pily suppressed,  and  which  attempted  to  justi^' 
itself  by  the  doctrine  of  State  sovereignty,  has 
thrown,  in  many  minds,  new  light  on  the  sub- 
ject, and  led  them  to  re-examine  the  historical 
facts  in  the  case  from  a  different  point  of  view, 
to  see  if  Mr.  Calhoun's  theory  is  not  as  unfound- 
ed as  he  had  proved  Mr.  Webster's  theory  to  be. 
The  facts  in  the  case  really  sustain  neither,  and 
both  failed  to  see  it :  Mr.  Calhoun  because  he 
had  purposes  to  accomplish  which  demanded 
State  sovereignty,  and  Mr.  Webster  because  he 
examined  them  in  the  distorting  medium  of  the 
theory  or  understanding  of  the  statesmen  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  The  civil  war  has  vindi- 
cated the  Union,  and  defeated  the  armed  forces 
of  the  State  sovereignty  men ;  but  it  has  not  re- 
fated  their  doctiine,  and  as  far  as  it  has  had 
any  effect,  it  has  strengthened  the  tendency  to 
consolidation  or  centralism. 

But  the  philosophy,  the  theory  of  govern- 
ment, the  imderstanding  of  the  framers  of  the 
constitution,  must  be  considered,  if  the  expres- 


CONSTITUTION  OP  THE  UNITED  STATES.         SJ43 

«ion  will  be  allowed,  as  obiter  dicta,  and  be 
judged  on  their  merits.  What  binds  is  the 
thing  done,  not  the  theory  on  which  it  was 
done,  or  on  which  the  actors  explained  their 
work  either  to  themselves  or  to  others.  Their 
political  philosophy,  or  their  political  theoiy, 
may  sometimes  affect  the  phraseology  they 
adopt,  but  forms  no  rule  for  interpreting  their 
work.  Their  work  was  inspired  by  and  ac- 
cords with  the  historical  facts  in  the  case,  and 
is  authorized  and  explained  by  them.  The 
American  people  were  not  made  one  people  by 
the  written  constitution,  as  Mr.  Jefferson,  Mr. 
Madison,  Mr.  Webster,  and  so  many  others 
supposed,  but  were  made  so  by  the  unwritten 
constitution,  born  with  and  inherent  in  them. 


344  THE  AMERICAir  EEPUBLIC. 


CHAPTER   XL 

THE   OOirSTITlTTIOIf—OoTsrnmmv. 

Providence,  or  God  operating  througli  his- 
torical facts,  constituted  the  American  people 
one  political  or  sovereign  people,  existing  and 
acting  in  particular  communities,  organizations^ 
called  states.  This  one  people  organized  as 
states,  meet  in  convention,  frame  and  ordain  the 
constitution  of  government,  or  institute  a 
general  government  in  place  of  the  Continen- 
tal Congress ;  and  the  same  people,  in  their  re- 
spective State  organizations,  meet  in  conven- 
tion in  each  State,  and  frame  and  ordain  a  par- 
ticular government  for  the  State  individually, 
which,  in  union  with  the  General  government, 
constitutes  the  complete  and  supreme  gov- 
ernment within  the  States,  as  the  General 
government,  in  union  with  all  the  particular 
governments,  constitutes  the  complete  and 
supreme  government  of  the  nation  or  whole 
country.  This  is  clearly  the  view  taken  by 
Mr.   Madison  in   his    letter    to   Mr.   Everett, 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATED         245 

when  freed  from  his  theory  of  the  origin  of  gov- 
ernment in  compact. 

The  constitution  of  the  people  as  one  people, 
4ind  the  distinction  at  the  same  time  of  this  one 
people  into  particular  States,  precedes  the  con- 
vention, and  is  the  unwritten  constitution,  the 
Providential  constitution,  of  the  American  peo- 
ple or  civil  society,  as  distinguished  from  the 
constitution  of  the  government,  which,  whether 
general  or  particular,  is  the  ordination  of  civil 
society  itself.  The  unwritten  constitution  is 
the  creation  or  constitution  of  the  sovereign, 
and  the  sovereign  providentially  constituted 
constitutes  in  turn  the  government,  which  is 
not  sovereign,  but  is  clothed  with  just  so  much 
and  just  so  little  authority  as  the  sovereign 
wills  or  ordains. 

The  sovereign  in  the  republican  order  is  the 
organic  people,  or  state,  and  is  with  us  the 
United  States,  for  with  us  the  organic  people  ex- 
ist only  as  organized  into  States  united,  which  in 
their  union  form  one  compact  and  indissoluble 
whole.  That  is  to  say,  the  organic  American 
people  do  not  exist  as  a  consolidated  people  or 
€tate ;  they  exist  only  as  organized  into  distinct 
but  inseparable  States.  Each  State  is  a  living 
member  of  the  one  body,  and  derives  its  life 
from  its  union  with  the  body,  so  that  the  Amer- 


246  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

ican  state  is  one  body  with  many  members  j 
and  the  members,  instead  of  being  sinjply  in- 
dividuals, are  States,  or  individuals  organized 
into  States.  The  body  consists  of  many  mem- 
bers, and  is  one  body,  because  the  members  are  all 
members  of  it,  and  members  one  of  another.  It 
does  not  exist  as  separate  or  distinct  from  the 
members,  but  exists  in  their  solidarity  or  mem- 
bership one  of  another.  There  is  no  sovereign 
people  or  existence  of  the  United  States  distin- 
guishable from  the  people  or  existence  of  the- 
particular  States  united.  The  people  of  the 
United  States,  the  state  called  the  United  States,- 
are  the  people  of  the  particular  States  united.  The 
solidarity  of  the  members  constitutes  the  unity 
of  the  body.  The  difference  between  this  view 
and  Mr.  Madison's  is,  that  while  his  view  sup- 
poses the  solidarity  to  be  conventional,  origina- 
ting and  existing  in  compact,  or  agreement^ 
this  supposes  it  to  be  real,  living,  and  prior  to 
the  convention,  as  much  the  work  of  Provi- 
dence as  the  existence  in  the  human  body  of  the 
living  solidarity  of  its  members.  One  law,  one 
]ife,  circulates  through  all  the  members,  consti- 
tuting them  a  living  organism,  binding  them  in 
living  union,  all  to  each   and  each  to  alL 

Such  is  the. sovereign  people,  and  so  far  the 
•original  unwritten  constitution.    The  sovereign. 


CONSTITUTION  OP  THE  UNITED  STATES.         247 

in  order  to  live  and  act,  must  have  an  organ 
through  which  he  expresses  his  will.  This 
organ,  under  the  American  system,  is  primarily 
the  Convention.  The  convention  is  the  supreme 
political  body,  the  concrete  sovereign  authority, 
and  exercises  practically  the  whole  sovereign 
power  of  the  people.  The  convention  persists 
always,  although  not  in  permanent  session.  It 
can  at  any  time  be  convened  by  the  ordinary 
authority  of  the  government,  or,  in  its  failure, 
by  2i  plebisGitu7n. 

Next  follows  the  Government  created  and  con- 
stituted by  the  convention.  The  government  is 
constituted  in  such  manner,  and  has  such  and  only 
such  powers,  as  the  convention  ordains.  The  gov- 
ernment has,  in  the  strict  sense,  no  political  author- 
ity under  the  American  system,  which  separates 
the  government  from  the  convention.  All  political 
questions  proper,  such  as  the  elective  franchise, 
eligibility,  the  constitution  of  the  several  depart- 
ments of  government,  as  the  legislative,  the 
judicial,  and  the  executive,  changing,  altering, 
or  amending  the  constitution  of  government, 
enlarging  or  contracting  its  powers,  in  a  word, 
all  those  questions  that  arise  on  which  it  is  ne- 
cessary to  take  the  immediate  orders  of  the  sov- 
ereign, belong  not  to  the  government,  but  to 
the  convention ;  and  where  the  will  of  the  sover- 


248  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

eign  is  not  sufficiently  expressed  in  the  con- 
stitution, a  new  appeal  to  the  convention  is  ne- 
cessary, and  may  always  be  had. 

The  constitution  of  Great  Britain  makes  no 
distinction  between  the  convention  and  the 
government. '  Theoretically  the  constitution  of 
Great  Britain  is  feudal, 'and  there  is,  properly 
speaking,. no  British  state;  there  are  only  the 
estates,  king,  lords,  and  commons,  and  these 
three  estates  constitute  the  Parliament,  which 
is  held  to  be  omnipotent ;  that  is,  has  the  plen- 
itude of  political  sovereignty.  The  British  Par- 
liament, composed  of  the  three  estates,  possesses 
in  itself  all  the  powers  of  the  convention  in  the 
American  constitution,  and  is  at  once  the  con- 
vention and  the  government.  The  im])erial 
constitution  of  France  recognizes  no  convention, 
but  clothes  the  senate  with  certain  political 
functions,  which,  in  some  respects,  subjects  the- 
oretically the  sovereign  to  his  creature.  The 
emperor  confessedly  holds  his  power  by  the 
grace  of  God  and  the  will  of  the  nation,  which 
is  a  clear  acknowledgment  that  the  sovereignty 
vests  in  the  French  people  as  the  French 
state;  but  the  imperial  constitution,  which  is 
the  constitution  of  the  government,  not  of  the 
state,  studies,  while  acknowledging  the  sover- 
eignty of  the  people,  to  render  it  nugatory,  by 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.  249 

transferring  it,  under  various  subtle  disguises, 
to  the  government,  and  practically  to  tlie  em- 
peror as  chief  of  the  government.  The  senate, 
the  council  of  state,  the  legislative  body,  and 
the  emperor,  are  all  creatures  of  the  French 
state,  and  have  properly  no  political  functions, 
and  to  give  them  such  functions  is  to  place  the 
sovereign  under  his  own  subjects!  The  real 
aim  of  the  imperial  constitution  is  to  secure 
despotic  power  under  the  guise  of  republican- 
ism. It  leaves  and  is  intended  to  leave  the 
nation  no  way  of  practically  asserting  its  sov- 
ereignty but  by  either  a  revolution  or  a  plebis- 
citum^  and  a  plebiscitum  is  permissible  only 
where  there  is  no  regular  government. 

The  British  constitution  is  consistent  with 
itself,  but  imposes  no  restriction  on  the  power 
of  the  government.  The  French  imperial  con- 
stitution is  illogical,  inconsistent  with  itself  as 
well  as  with  the  free  action  of  the  nation.  The 
American  constitution  has  all  the  advantages 
of  both,  and  the  disadvantages  of  neither.  The 
convention  is  not  the  government  like  the  Brit- 
ish Parliament,  nor  a  creature  of  the  state  like 
the  French  senate,  but  the  sovereign  state  itself, 
in  a  practical  form.  By  means  of  the  conven- 
tion the  government  is  restricted  to  its  delegated 
powers,  and  these,  if  found  in  practice  eithei 


250  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

too  great  or  too  small,  can  be  enlarged  or  con- 
ta-acted  in  a  regular,  orderly  way,  without  re- 
sorting to  a  revolution  or  to  a  plehiscitum^ 
Whatever  political  grievances  there  may  be,  there- 
is  always  present  the  sovereign  convention  com- 
petent to  redress  them.  The  efficiency  of  power 
is  thus  secured  without  danger  to  liberty,  and 
freedom  without  danger  to  power.  The  recog- 
nition of  the  convention,  the  real  political  sov- 
ereign of  the  country,  and  its  separation  from 
and  independence  of  the  ordinary  government, 
is  one  of  the  most  striking  features  of  the 
American  constitution. 

The  next  thing  to  be  noted,  after  the  conven- 
tion, is  the  constitution  Vjy  the  convention  of 
the  government.  This  constitution,  as  Mr. 
Madison  well  observes,  divides  the  powers  con- 
ceded  by  the  convention  to  government  between 
the  General  government  and  the  particular  State 
governments.  Strictly  speaking,  the  govern- 
ment is  one,  and  its  powers  only  are  divided 
and  exercised  by  two  sets  of  agents  or  ministries^ 
This  division  of  the  powers  of  government  could 
never  have  been  established  by  the  convention 
if  the  American  people  had  not  been  providen- 
tially constituted  one  people,  existing  and  act- 
ing through  particular  State  organizations.  Here 
the  unwritten  constitution,  or  the  constitution 


CONSTITUTION  Gf'  THE  UNITED  STATES  25:P 

written  in  tlie  people  themselves,  readered 
practicable  and  dictated  the  written  constitu- 
tion, or  constitution  ordained  by  the  convention 
and  engrossed  on  parchment.  It  only  expresses 
in  the  government  the  fact  which  pre-existed  in- 
the  national  organization  and  life. 

This  division  of  the  powers  of  government  is 
peculiar  to  the  United  States,  and  is  an  effective- 
safeo-uard  ao;ainst  both  feudal  disinteo^ration  and 
E-oman  centralism.  Misled  by  their  prejudice* 
and  peculiar  interests,  a  portion  of  the  people 
of  tbe  United  States,  pleading  in  their  justifica- 
tion  the  theory  of  State  sovereignty,  attempted 
disintegration,  secession,  and  national  independ- 
ence separate  from  that  of  the  United  States, 
but  the  central  force  of  the  constitution  was  too 
strong  for  them  to  succeed.  The  unity  of  the 
nation  was  too  strong  to  be  effectually  broken. 
No  doubt  the  reaction  against  secession  and 
disintegration  will  strengthen  the  tendency  to 
centralism,  but  centralism  can  succeed  no  better 
than  disintegration  has  succeeded,  because  the 
General  government  has  no  sicbsistentia,  no  svp- 
positunty  to  borrow  a  theological  term,  outside 
or  independent  of  the  States.  The  particular 
governments  are  stronger,  if  there  be  any  differ- 
ence, to  protect  the  States  against  centralism^ 
than  the  General  government  is  to  protect  thft 


262  THE  AMERICAN  RBPUBLIC. 

Union  against  disintegration;  and  after  swing 
ing  for  a  time  too  far  toward  one  extreme  and 
then  too  far  toward  tLe  other,  the  public  mind 
will  recover  its  equilibrium,  and  the  govern- 
ment move  on  in  its  constitutional  path. 

Republican  Rome  attempted  to  guard  against 
excessive  centralism  by  the  tribunitial  veto,  or 
by  the  organization  of  a  negative  or  obstructive 
power.  Mr.  Calhoun  thought  this  admirable, 
and  wished  to  effect  the  same  end  here,  where 
it  is  secured  by  other,  more  effective,  and  less 
objectionable  means,  by  a  State  veto  on  the  acts 
of  Congress,  by  a  dual  executive,  and  by  sub- 
stituting concurrent  for  numerical  majorities. 
Imperial  Rome  gradually  swept  away  the  tri- 
bunitial veto,  concentrated  all  power  in  the 
hands  of  the  emperor,  became  completely  cen- 
tralized, and  fell.  The  British  constitution 
seeks  the  same  end  by  substituting  estates  for 
the  state,  and  establishing  a  mixed  government, 
in  which  monarchy,  aristocracy,  and  democracy 
temper,  check,  or  balance  each  other ;  but  prac- 
tically the  commons  estate  has  become  supreme, 
and  the  nobility  govern  not  in  the  house  of 
lords,  and  can  really  influence  public  affairs 
only  through  the  house  of  commons.  The  prin- 
ciple of  the  British  constitution  is  not  the  divi- 
sion of  the  powers  of  government,  but  the  an- 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STiTES.  253 

•tagonism  of  estates,  or  rather  of  interests,  trusting 
to  the  obstructive  influence  of  that  antagonism 
to  preserve  the  government  from  pure  central- 
ism. Hence  the  study  of  the  British  statesman 
is  to  manage  diverse  and  antagonistic  parties 
and  interests  so  as  to  gain  the  ability  to  act, 
which  he  can  do  only  by  intrigue,  cajolery, 
bribery  in  one  form  or  anoth'er,  and  corruption 
of  every  sort.  The  British  government  cannot 
be  carried  on  by  fair,  honest,  and  honorable 
means,  any  more  than  could  the  Roman  under 
the  antagonism  created  by  the  tribunitial  veto. 
The  French  tried  the  English  system  of  organ- 
ized antagonism  in  1789,  as  a  cure  for  the  cen- 
tralism introduced  by  Richelieu  and  Louis  XIV., 
and  again  under  the  Restoration  and  Louis  Phil- 
ippe, and  called  it  the  system  of  constitutional 
guarantees;  but  they  could  never  manage  it, 
and  they  have  taken  refuge  in  unmitigated 
centralism  under  Napoleon  HI.,  who,  however 
well  disposed,  finds  no  means  in  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  French  nation  of  tempering  it.  The 
English  system,  called  the  constitutional,  and 
sometimes  the  parliamentary  system,  will  not 
work  in  France,  and  indeed  works  really  well 
nowhere. 

The  American  system,  sometimes  called  the 
Federal  system,  is  not  founded  on  antagonism 


564  -THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

-of  classes,  estates,  or  interests,  and  is  in  no 
-sense  a  system  of  checks  and  balances.  It 
needs  and  tolerates  no  obstructive  forces.  It 
-does  not  pit  section  against  section,  the  States 
severally  against  the  General  government,  nor 
the  General  government  against  the  State  gov- 
-ernments,  and  nothing  is  more  hurtful  than  the 
attempt  to  explain  it  and  work  it  on  the  prin- 
<;iples  of  Biitish  constitutionalism.  The  con- 
vention created  no  antagonistic  powers ;  it  sim- 
ply divided  the  powers  of  government,  and 
gave  neither  to  the  General  government  nor  to 
the  State  governments  all  the  powers  of  govern- 
ment, nor  in  any  instance  did  it  give  to  the  two 
governments  jurisdiction  in  the  same  matters. 
Hence  each  has  its  own  sphere,  in  which  it  can 
move  on  without  colliding  with  that  of  the 
^ther.  Each  is  independent  and  complete  in 
relation  to  its  own  work,  incomplete  and  de- 
pendent on  the  other  for  the  complete  work  of 
government. 

The  division  of  power  is  not  between  a  na- 
tional government  and  State  governments,  but 
between  a  General  governmen  and  particular 
governments.  The  General  government,  inas- 
much as  it  extends  to  matters  common  to  all 
ijhe  States,  is  usually  called  the  Government  of 
the  United  States,  and  sometimes  the  Federal 


XDONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.  255 

government,  to  distinguish  it  from  the  particu- 
iar  or  State  governments,  but  without  strict 
propriety ;  for  the  government  of  the  United 
States,  or  the  Federal  government,  means,  in 
stiictness,  both  the  General  government  and  the 
particular  governments,  since  neither  is  in  itself 
the  complete  government  of  the  country.  The 
General  government  has  authority  within  each 
of  the  States,  and  each  of  the  State  governments 
has  authority  in  the  Union.  The  line  between 
the  Union  and  the  States  severally,  is  not  pre- 
ijisely  the  line  between  the  General  government 
and  the  particular  governments.  As,  for  in- 
stance, the  General  government  lays  direct  taxes 
on  the  people  of  the  States,  and  collects  internal 
revenue  within  them ;  and  the  citizens  of  a  par 
ticular  State,  and  none  others,  are  electors  of 
President  and  Vice-President  of  the  United 
States,  and  representatives  in  the  lower  house 
of  Congress,  while  senators  in  Congress  are 
elected  by  the  State  legislatures  themselves. 

The  line  that  distinguishes  the  two  govern- 
ments is  that  which  distinguishes  the  general 
relations  and  interests  from  the  particular  rela- 
tions and  interests  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States.  These  general  relations  and  interests  are 
placed  under  the  General  government,  which^ 
because  its  jurisdiction  is  coextensive  mtH  the 


266  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

Union,  is  called  the  Government  of  the  United 
States;  the  particular  relations  and  interests 
are  placed  under  particular  governments,  which, 
because  their  juiisdiction  is  only  coextensive 
with  the  States  respectively,  are  called  State 
governmcDts.  The  General  government  governs 
supremely  all  the  people  of  the  United  States 
and  Territories  belonging  to  the  Union,  in  all 
their  general  relations  and  interests,  or  relations 
and  interests  common  alike  to  them  all ;  the  par* 
ticular  or  State  government  governs  supremely 
the  people  of  a  particular  State,  as  Massachusetts, 
New  York,  or  New  Jersey,  in  all  that  pertains 
to  their  particular  or  private  rights,  relations, 
and  interests.  The  powers  of  each  are  equally 
sovereign,  and  neither  are  derived  from  the 
other.  The  State  governments  are  not  subordi- 
nate to  tlie  General  government,  nor  the  General 
government  to  the  State  governments.  They 
are  co-ordinate  governments,  each  standing  on 
the  same  level,  and  deriving  its  powers  from 
the  same  sovereign  authority.  In  their  respec- 
tive spheres  neither  yields  to  the  other.  In 
relation  to  the  matters  within  its  jurisdiction, 
each  government  is  independent  and  supreme 
in  regard  of  the  other,  and  subject  only  to  the 
convention. 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.         257 

The  powers  of  the  General  government  are 
the  power — 

To  lay  and  collect  taxes,  duties,  imposts,  and 
excises,  to  pay  the  debts  and  provide  for  the 
general  welfare  of  the  United  States ;  to  bor- 
row money  on  the  credit  of  the  United  States ; 
to  regulate  commerce  with  foreign  nations, 
among  the  several  States,  and  with  the  Indian 
tribes ;  to  establish  a  uniform  rule  of  natural- 
ization, and  uniform  laws  on  the  subject  of 
bankruptcies  throughout  the  United  States ;  to 
coin  money  and  regulate  the  value  thereof,  and 
fix  the  standard  of  weights  and  measures ;  to 
provide  for  the  punishment  of  counterfeiting 
the  securities  and  current  coin  of  the  United 
States ;  to  establish  post-offices  and  post-roads ; 
to  promote  the  progress  of  science  and  of  the 
useful  arts,  by  securing  for  limited  times  to  au- 
thors and  inventors  the  exclusive  right  to  their 
respective  writings  and  discoveries;  to  define 
and  punish  piracies  and  felonies  committed  on 
the  high  seas,  and  offences  against  the  law  of 
nations ;  to  declare  war,  grant  letters  of  marque 
and  reprisal,  and  make  rules  concerning  captures 
on  land  and  water;  to  raise  and  support  ar- 
mies ;  to  provide  and  maintain  a  navy ;  to  make 
rules  for  the  government  of  the  land  and  naval 
forces ;  to  provide  for  calling  forth  the  militia  to 

18 


'258  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

execute  the  laws  of  the  Union,  suppress  insur- 
rections, and  repel  invasions ;  to  provide  for  or- 
ganizing, arming,  and  disciplining  the  militia, 
and  of  governing  such  part  of  them  as  may  be 
employed  in  the  service  of  the  United  States ; 
to  exercise  exclusive  legislation  in  all  cases 
whatsoever  over  such  district,  not  exceeding^  ten 
miles  square,  as  may  by  cession  of  particular 
States  and  the  acceptance  of  Congress,  become 
the  seat  of  the  government  of  the  United  States, 
and  to  exercise  a  like  authority  over  all  places 
purchased  by  the  consent  of  the  legislature  of 
the  State  in  which  the  same  shall  be,  for  the 
erection  of  forts,  magazines,  arsenals,  dock-yards, 
and  other  needful  buildings ;  and  to  make  all 
laws  which  shall  be  necessary  and  proper  for 
carrying  into  execution  the  foregoing  powers, 
and  all  other  powers  vested  by  this  constitution 
in  the  government  of  the  United  States,  or  in 
any  department  or  office  thereof 

In  addition  to  these,  the  General  government  is 
clothed  with  the  treaty-making  power,  and  the 
whole  charge  of  the  foreign  relations  of  the  coun- 
try ;  with  power  to  admit  new  States  into  the 
Union ;  to  dispose  of  and  make  all  needful  rules 
and  regulations  concerning  the  territory  and  all 
other  property  belonging  to  the  United  States ;  to 
declare,  with  certain  restrictions,  the  punishment 


■CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.         259 

of  treason,  tlie  constitution  itself  defining  what 
is  treason  against  the  United  States;  and  to 
propose,  or  to  call,  on  the  application  of  the 
legislatures  of  two-thirds  of  all  the  states,  a 
convention  for  proposing  amendments  to  this 
constitution;  and  is  vested  with  supreme  judicial 
power,  original  or  appellate,  in  all  cases  of  law 
and  equity  arising  under  this  constitution,  the 
laws  of  the  United  States,  and  treaties  made  or 
to  be  made  under  their  authority,  in  all  cases 
affecting  ambassadors,  other  public  ministers, 
and  consuls,  in  all  cases  of  admiralty  and  mari- 
time jurisdiction,  in  all  controversies  to  which 
the  United  States  shall  be  a  party,  all  contro- 
versies between  two  or  more  States,  between  a 
State  and  citizens  of  another  State,  between  citi- 
zens of  different  States,  between  citizens  of  the 
same  State  claiming  lands  under  grants  of  dif- 
ferent States,  and  between  a  State  or  the  citizens 
thereof  and  foreign  states,  citizens,  or  subjects. 

These,  with  what  is  incidental  to  them,  and 
what  is  necessary  and  proper  to  carry  them 
into  effect,  are  all  the  positive  powers  with 
which  the  convention  vests  the  General  gov- 
ernment, or  government  of  the  United  States, 
as  distinguished  from  the  governments  of  the 
particular  States ;  and  these,  with  the  exception 
of  what  relates  to  the  district  in  which  it  has 


260  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

its  seat,  and  places  of  forts,  magazines,  &c.,  are 
of  a  general  nature,  and  restricted  to  the  com- 
mon relations  and  interests  of  the  people,  or  at 
least  to  interests  and  relations  wHcli  extend 
beyond  the  limits  of  a  particular  State.  They 
are  all  powers  that  regard  matters  which  extend 
beyond  not  only  the  individual  citizen,  but  the 
individual  State,  and  affect  alike  the  relations 
and  interests  of  all  the  States,  or  matters  which 
cannot  be  disposed  of  by  a  State  government 
without  the  exercise  of  extra-territorial  juris- 
diction. They  give  the  government  no  jurisdic- 
tion of  questions  which  affect  individuals  or 
citizens  only  in  their  private  and  domestic  rela- 
tions which  lie  wholly  within  a  particular  State. 
The  General  government  does  not  legislate  con- 
cernmg  private  rights,  whether  of  persons  or 
things,  the  tenure  of  real  estate,  marriage, 
dower,  inheritance,  wills,  the  transferrence  or 
transmission  of  property,  real  or  personal;  it 
can  charter  no  private  corporations,  out  of  the 
District  of  Columbia,  for  business,  literaiy, 
scientific,  or  eleemosynary  purposes,  establish 
no  schools,  found  no  colleges  or  universities, 
and  promote  science  and  the  useful  arts  only 
by  securing  to  authors  and  inventors  for  a  time 
the  exclusive  right  to  their  writings  and  dis- 
coveries.   The  United  States  Bank  was  man- 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.         261 

ifestly  Tinconstitutional,  as  probably  are  the 
present  so-called  national  banks.  The  United 
States  Bank  was  a  private  or  particular  cor- 
poration, and  the  present  national  banks  are 
•only  corporations  of  the  same  sort,  though  or- 
ganized under  a  general  law.  The  pretence 
that  they  are  established  to  supply  a  national 
currency  does  not  save  their  constitutionality, 
for  the  convention  has  not  given  the  General 
government  the  power  nor  imposed  on  it  the 
4uty  of  furnishing  a  national  currency.  To 
<3oin  money,  and  regulate  the  value  thereof,  is 
something  very  different  from  authorizing  pri- 
vate companies  to  issue  bank  notes,  on  the 
basis  of  the  public  stocks  held  as  private  prop- 
erty, or  even  on  what  is  called  a  specie  basis. 
To  claim  the  power  under  the  general  welfare 
clause  would  be  a  simple  mockery  of  good 
sense.  It  is  no  more  for  the  genenil  welfare 
than  any  other  successful  private  business. 
TTie  private  welfare  of  each  is,  no  doubt,  for 
the  welfare  of  all,  but  not  therefore  is  it  the 
^'  general  welfare,"  for  what  is  private,  partic- 
ular in  its  nature,  is  not  and  cannot  be  general. 
To  understand  by  general  welfare  that  which 
is  for  the  individual  welfare  of  all  or  the  greater 
number,  would  be  to  claim  for  the  General 
government  all  the  powers  of  government,  and 


262  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

to  deny  that  very  division  of  powers  whicli  is  the 
crowning  meiit  of  the  American  system.  The 
general  welfare,  by  the  very  force  of  the  words 
themselves,  means  the  common  as  distinguished 
from  the  private  or  individuax  welfare.  The 
system  of  national  banks  may  or  may  not  be  a 
good  and  desirable  system,  but  it  is  difficult  to 
understand  the  constitutional  power  of  the 
General  government  to  establish  it. 

On  the  ground  that  its  powers  are  general, 
not  particular,  the  General  government  has  no- 
power  to  lay  a  protective  tariff.  It  can  lay  a 
tariff  for  revenue,  not  for  protection  of  home 
manufactures  or  home  industry;  for  the  interests 
fostered,  even  though  indirectly  advantageous  to 
the  whole  people,  are  in  their  nature  private  or 
particular,  not  general  interests,  and  chiefly  inter- 
ests of  private  corporations  and  capitalists.  Their 
incidental  or  even  consequential  effects  do  not 
change  their  direct  and  essential  nature.  So 
with  domestic  slavery.  Slavery  comes  under 
the  head  of  private  rights,  whether  regarded 
on  the  side  of  the  master  or  on  the  side  of  the 
slave.  The  right  of  a  citizen  to  hold  a  slave, 
if  a  right  at  all,  is  the  private  right  of  property, 
and  the  right  of  the  slave  to  his  freedom  is  a 
private  and  personal  right,  and  neither  is  placed 
under  the  safeguard  of  the  General  government^ 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.  263 

whicli  has  nowhere,  unless  in  the  District  of 
Columbia  and  the  places  over  which  it  has  ex- 
clusive legislative  power  in  all  cases  whatsoever, 
either  the  right  to  establish  it  or  to  abolish  it, 
except  perhaps  under  the  war  power,  as  a  mili- 
tary necessity,  an  indemnity  for  the  past,  or  a 
security  for  the  future. 

This  applies  to  what  are  called  Territories  as 
well  as  to  the  States.  The  right  of  the  govern- 
ment to  govern  the  Territories  in  regard  to  pri- 
vate and  particular  rights  and  interests,  is  de- 
rived from  no  express  grant  of  power,  and  is 
held  only  ex  necessitate — the  United  States 
0"vvniDg  the  domain,  and  there  being  no  other 
authority  competent  to  govern  them.  But,  as 
in  the  case  of  all  powers  held  ex  necessitate, 
the  power  is  restricted  to  the  absolute  ne- 
cessity in  the  case.  What  are  called  Territorial 
governments,  to  distinguish  them  from  the 
State  governments,  are  only  provisional  govern- 
ments, and  can  touch  private  rights  and  inter- 
ests no  further  than  is  necessary  to  preserve 
order  and  prepare  the  way  for  the  organization 
and  installation  of  a  regular  State  government. 
Till  then  the  law  governing  private  rights  is 
the  law  that  was  in  force,  if  any  such  there  was, 
v^hen  the  territory  became  by  purchase,  by 


264  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIO. 

conquest,  or  by  treaty,  attached  to  the  domain 
of  the  United  States. 

Hence  the  Supreme  Court  declared  unconsti- 
tutional the  ordinance  of  1787,  prohibiting  sla- 
very in  what  was  called  the  Territory  of  the 
Northwest,  and  the  so-called  Missouri  Compro- 
mise, prohibiting  slavery  north  of  the  parallel 
36°  30'.  The  Wilmot  proviso  was  for  the 
same  reason  unconstitutional  The  General 
government  never  had  and  has  not  any  power 
to  exclude  slavery  from  the  Territories,  any 
more  than  to  abolish  it  in  the  States.  But 
slavery  being  a  local  institution,  sustained 
neither  by  the  law  of  nature  nor  the  law  of 
nations,  no  citizen  migrating  from  a  slave  State 
could  carry  his  slaves  with  him,  and  hold  them 
as  slaves  in  the  Territory.  Rights  enacted  by 
local  law  are  rights  only  in  that  locality,  and 
slaves  carried  by  their  masters  into  a  slave 
State  even,  are  free,  unless  the  State  into  which 
they  are  carried  enacts  to  the  contrary.  The 
only  persons  that  could  be  held  as  slaves  in  a 
Territory  would  be  those  who  were  slaves  or 
the  children  of  those  who  were  slaves  in  the 
Territory  when  it  passed  to  the  United  States. 
The  whole  controversy  on  slavery  in  the  Terri- 
tories, and  which  culminated  in  the  civil  war, 
was  wholly  unnecessary,  and  never  could  have 


CONSTITUTIOX  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.         265 

occurred  Lad  tlie  constitution  been  properly  un- 
derstood and  adhered  to  by  both  sides.  True, 
Congress  could  not  exclude  slaveiy  from  the 
Territory,  but  neither  could  citizens  migrating  to 
them  hold  slaves  in  them;  and  so  really  slavery 
was  virtually  excluded,  for  the  inhabitants  in 
nearly  all  of  them,  not  emigrants  from  the 
States  after  the  cession  to  the  United  States, 
v^ere  too  few  to  be  counted. 

The  General  government  has  power  to  es- 
tablish a  uniform  rule  of  naturalization,  to 
which  all  the  States  must  conform,  and  it  was 
very  proper  that  it  should  have  this  power,  so 
as  to  prevent  one  State  from  gaining  by  its  natu- 
ralization laws  an  undue  advantage  over  anoth- 
er; but  the  General  government  has  itself  no 
power  to  naturalize  a  single  foreigner,  or  in  any 
case  to  say  who  shall  or  who  shall  not  be  citi- 
zens, either  of  a  State  or  of  the  United  States, 
■or  to  declare  who  may  or  may  not  be  elec- 
tors even  of  its  own  officers.  The  convention 
ordains  that  members  of  the  house  of  represen- 
tatives shall  be  chosen  by  electors  who  have 
the  qualifications  requisite  for  electors  of  the 
most  numerous  branch  of  the  State  legislature, 
but  the  State  determines  those  qualifications,  and 
who  do  or  do  not  possess  them ;  that  the  sena* 
tors  shall  be  chosen  bvthe  State  leo-islatures,  and 


266  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

that  the  electors  of  President  and  Vice-President 
shall  be  appointed  in  such  manner  as  the  respec- 
tive State  legislatures  may  direct.  The  whole 
question  of  citizenship,  what  shall  or  shall  not 
be  the  qualifications  of  electors,  who  shall  or 
shall  not  be  freemen,  is  reserved  to  the  States,  as 
coming  under  the  head  of  personal  or  private 
rights  and  franchises.  In  practice,  the  exact 
line  of  demarcation  may  not  always  have  been 
strictly  observed  either  by  the  General  govern- 
ment or  by  the  State  governments ;  but  a  care- 
ful study  of  the  constitution  cannot  fail  to  show 
that  the  division  of  powers  is  the  division  or  dis- 
tinction between  the  public  and  general  rela- 
tions and  interests,  rights  and  duties  of  the 
people,  and  their  private  and  particular  rela- 
tions and  interests,  rights  and  duties.  As  these 
two  classes  of  relations  and  interests,  rights  and 
duties,  though  distinguishable,  are  really  insep- 
arable in  nature,  it  follows  that  the  two  gov- 
ernments are  essential  to  the  existence  of  a  com- 
plete government,  or  to  the  existence  of  a  real 
governulent  in  its  plenitude  and  integrity. 
Left  to  either  alone,  the  people  would  have  only 
an  incomplete,  an  initial,  or  inchoate  govern- 
ment. The  General  government  is  the  com- 
plement of  the  State    governments,  and   the 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.         26T 

State  governments  are  the  complement  of  the 
General  government. 

The-  consideration  of  the  powers  denied  by 
the  convention  to  the  General  government  and 
to  the  State  governments  respectively,  will  lead 
to  the*  same  conclusion.  To  the  General  gov- 
ernment is  denied  expressly  or  by  necessary 
implication  all  jurisdiction  in  matters  of  pri- 
vate rights  and  interests,  and  to  the  State  gov- 
ernment is  denied  all  jurisdiction  in  rights  or 
interests  which  extend,  as  has  been  said,  be- 
yond the  boundaries  of  the  State.  "  No  State 
shall  enter  into  any  treaty,  alliance,  or  con- 
federation ;  grant  letters  of  marque  and  reprisal  p 
coin  money,  emit  bills  of  credit,  make  any 
thing  but  gold  and  silver  coin  a  tender  in  the 
payment"  of  debts ;  pass  any  bill  of  attainder,  ex 
post  facto  law,  or  law  impairing  the  obligation 
of  contracts,  or  grant  any  title  of  nobility.  No 
State  shall,  without  the  consent  of  Congress, 
lay  any  imposts  or  duties  on  imports  or  ex- 
ports, except  what  may  be  absolutely  necessary 
for  executing  its  inspection  laws,  and  the  net 
produce  of  all  duties  and  imposts  laid  by  any 
State  on  imports  and  exports  shall  be  for  the 
use  of  the  treasury  of  the  United  States,  and 
all  such  laws  shall  be  subject  to  the  revisioa 
and  control  of  Congress.     No  State  shall,  with- 


S68  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

out  the  consent  of  Congi-ess,  lay  any  duty  of 
tonnage,  keep  troops  or  sliips-of-war  in  time  of 
peace,  enter  into  any  agreement  or  compact 
with  another  State  or  with  a  foreign  power,  or 
engage  in  war,  unless  actually  invaded,  or  in 
such  imminent  danger  as  will  not  admit  of  de- 
lay." 

Tlie  powers  denied  to  the  States  in  some 
matters  which  are  rather  private  and  particular, 
such  as  bills  of  attainder,  ex  post  facto  laws, 
laws  impairing  the  obligation  of  contracts, 
granting  titles  of  nobility,  are  denied  equally 
to  the  General  government.  There  is  e^ddently 
ti  profound  logic  in  the  constitution,  and  there 
is  not  a  single  provision  in  it  that  is  arbitrary, 
or  anomalous,  or  that  does  not  harmonize  dia- 
lectically  with  the  whole,  and  with  the  real 
constitution  of  the  American  people.  At  first 
sight  the  reservation  to  the  State  of  the  appoint- 
ment of  the  officers  of  the  militia  might  seem 
an  anomaly;  but  as  the  whole  subject  of  inter- 
nal police  belongs  to  the  State,  it  should  have 
f!ome  military  force  at  its  command.  The  sub- 
ject of  bankruptcies,  also,  might  seem  to  be 
more  properly  within  the  province  of  the  State, 
and  so  it  would  be  if  commerce  between  the 
several  States  had  not  been  placed  under  Con- 
gress, or  if  trade  were  confined  to  the  citizens 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  269 

of  the  State  and  within  its  boundaries;  but 
as  such  is  not  the  case,  it  was  necessary  to  place 
it  under  the  General  government,  in  order  that 
laws  on  the  subject  might  be  uniform  through- 
out the  Union,  and  that  the  citizens  of  all  the 
States,  and  foreigners  trading  with  them,  should 
be  placed  on  an  equal  footing,  and  have  the 
same  remedies.  The  subject  follows  naturally 
in  the  train  of  commerce,  for  bankruptcies,  as 
understood  at  the  time,  were  confined  to  the 
mercantile  class,  bankers,  and  brokers;  and 
since  the  regulation  of  commerce,  foreign  and 
inter-state,  was  to  he  placed  under  the  sole 
charge  of  the  General  government,  it  was 
necessary  that  bankruptcy  should  be  included. 
The  subject  of  patents  is  placed  under,  the 
General  government,  though  the  patent  is  a 
private  right,  because  it  wa^  the  will  of  the 
convention  that  the  patent  ouould  be  good  in 
all  the  States,  as  affording  more  encouragement 
to  science  and  the  useful  arts  than  if  good  only 
within  a  single  State,  or  if  the  power  were  left 
to  each  State  to  recognize  or  not  patents  granted 
by  another.  The  right  created,  though  private 
in  its  nature,  is  yet  general  or  common  to  aU 
the  States  in  its  enjoyment  oi  exercise. 

The  division  of  the  powers  of  government 
between  a  General  government  and  particular 


■^0  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC 

.governments,  rendered  possible  and  practicable 
by  the  original  constitution  of  the  people  them- 
selves, as  one  people  existing  and  acting 
through  State  organizations,  is  the  American 
method  of  guarding  against  the  undue  central- 
ism to  which  Roman  imperialism  inevitably 
tends ;  and  it  is  far  simpler  and  more  effective 
than  any  of  the  European  systems  of  mixed 
governments,  which  seek  their  end  by  organ- 
izing an  antagonism  of  interests  or  classes. 
The  American  method  demands  no  such  antag- 
onism^ no  neutralizing  of  one  social  force  by 
another,  but  avails  itself  of  all  the  forces  of 
society,  organizes  them  dialectically,  not  antag- 
onistically, and  thus  protects  with  equal  effi- 
ciency both  public  authority  and  private  rights. 
The  General  goverardent  can  never  oppress 
the  people  as  individuals,  or  abridge  their  pri- 
vate lights  or  personal  freedom  and  indepen- 
dence, because  these  are  not  within  its  jurisdic- 
tion, but  are  placed  in  charge,  within  each 
State,  of  the  State  government,  which,  within  its 
sphere,  governs  as  supremely  as  the  General 
government:  the  State  governments  cannot 
weaken  the  public  authority  of  the  nation  or 
oppress  the  people  in  their  general  rights  and 
interests,  for  these  are  withdrawn  from  State 
jurisdiction,  and  placed  under  charge  of  a  Gen- 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.         271 

eral  governmentj  whicli,  in  its  sphere,  governs 
as  supremely  as  tlie  State  government.  There 
is  no  resort  to  a  system  of  checks  and  balances ; 
there  is  no  restraint  on  power,  and  no  sys- 
temat  ic  distrust  of  power,  but  simply  a  division 
of  powers  between  two  co-ordinate  govern- 
ments, distinct  but  inseparable,  moving  in  dis- 
tinct spheres,  but  in  the  same  direction,  or  to  a 
common  end.  The  system  is  no  invention  of 
man,  is  no  creation  of  the  convention,  but  is 
given  us  by  Providence  in  the  living  constitu- 
tion of  the  American  people.  The  merit  of  the 
statesmen  of  1787  is  that  they  did  not  destroy 
or  deface  the  work  of  Providence,  but  accepted 
it,  and  organized  the  government  in  harmony 
with  the  real  order,  the  real  elements  given 
them.  They  suffered  themselves  in  all  their  posi- 
tive substantial  work  to  be  governed  by  reality, 
not  by  theories  and  speculations.  In  this  they 
proved  themselves  statesmen,  and  their  work 
survives;  and  the  republic,  laugh  as  sciolists  may, 
is,  for  the  present  and  future,  the  model  republic 
— as  much  so  as  was  Rome  in  her  day ;  and  it  is 
not  simply  national  pride  nor  American  self- 
conceit  that  pronounces  its  establishment  the 
beginning  of  a  new  and  more  advanced  order 
of  civilization;  such  is  really  the  fact. 

The  only  apparently  weak  point  in  the  sys- 


272  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

tern  is  in  the  particular  States  themselves.  Feu- 
dalism protected  the  feudal  aristocracy  effec* 
tively  for  a  time  against  both  the  king  and  the 
people,  but  left  the  king  and  the  people  with- 
out protection  against  the  aristocracy,  and 
hence  it  fell.  It  was  not  adequate  to  the  wants 
of  civil  society,  did  not  harmonize  all  social  ele- 
ments, and  protect  all  social  and  individual 
1  ights  and  interests,  and  therefore  could  not 
but  fail.  The  General  government  takes  care  of 
public  authority  and  rights ;  the  State  protects 
private  rights  and  personal  freedom  as  against 
the  General  government :  but  what  protects  the 
citizens  in  their  private  rights,  their  personal 
freedom  and  independence,  against  the  particular 
State  government  ?  Universal  suffirage,  answers 
the  democrat.  Armed  with  the  ballot,  more 
powerful  than  the  sword,  each  citizen  is  able  to 
protect  himself  But  this  is  theory,  not  reality. 
If  it  were  true,  the  division  of  the  powers  of 
government  between  two  co-ordinate  govern- 
ments would  be  of  no  practical  importance. 
Experience  does  not  sustain  the  theory,  and  the 
power  of  the  ballot  to  protect  the  individual 
may  be  rendered  ineffective  by  the  tyranny  of 
party.  Experience  proves  that  the  ballot  is 
fai-  less  effective  in  securing  the  freedom  and 
independence  of  the  individual  citizen  than  is 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.  273 

commonly  pretended.  The  ballot  of  an  isolated 
individual  counts  for  notliing.  The  individual, 
though  ai*med  with  the  ballot,  is  as  powerless, 
if  he  stands  alone,  as  if  he  had  it  not.  To  ren- 
der it  of  any  avail  he  must  associate  himself 
with  a  party,  and  look  for  his  success  in  the 
success  of  his  party ;  and  to  secure  the  success 
of  his  party,  he  must  give  up  to  it  his  own  pri- 
vate convictions  and  free  will.  In  practice,  in- 
dividuals are  nothing  individually,  and  parties 
are  every  thing.  Even  the  suppression  of  the 
late  rebellion,  and  the  support  of  the  Adminis- 
tration in  doing  it,  was  made  a  party  question, 
and  the  government  found  the  leaders  of  the 
party  opposed  to  the  Republican  party  an  obsta- 
cle hardly  less  difficult  to  surmount  than  the 
chiefs  of  the  armies  of  the  so-called  Confederate 
States. 

Parties  are  formed,  one  hardly  knows  how> 
and  controlled,  no  one  knows  by  whom ;  but 
usually  by  demagogues,  men  who  have  some 
private  or  personal  purposes,  for  which  they 
wish,  through  party,  to  use  the  government. 
Parties  have  no  conscience,  no  responsibility, 
and  their  very  reason  of  being  is,  the  usurpa- 
tion and  concentration  of  power.  The  real 
practical  tendency  of  universal  suffrage  is  to 
democratic,  instead  of  an  imperial,  centralism. 

19 


274  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

What  is  to  guard  against  this  centralism  ?  Not 
universal  suffrage,  for  that  tends  to  create  it ; 
and  if  the  government  is  left  to  it,  the  govern- 
ment becomes  practically  the  will  of  an  ever- 
shifting  and  irresponsible  majority.  Is  the 
remedy  in  written  or  paper  constitutions? 
Party  can  break  through  them,  and  by  making 
the  judges  elective  by  party,  for  short  terms, 
,and  re-eligible,  can  do  so  with  impunity.  In 
several  of  the  States,  the  dominant  majority 
have  gained  the  power  to  govern  at  will,  with- 
out any  let  or  hindrance.  Besides,  constitutions 
can  be  altered,  and  have  been  altered,  very 
nearly  at  the  will  of  the  majority.  No  mere  pa- 
per constitutions  are  any  protection  against  the 
usurpations  of  party,  for  party  will  always  grasp 
all  the  power  it  can. 

Yet  the  evil  is  not  so  great  as  it  seems,  for  in 
most  of  the  States  the  principle  of  division  of 
powers  is  carried  into  the  bosom  of  the  State 
itself;  in  some  States  further  than  in  others, 
but  in  all  it  obtains  to  some  extent.  In  what 
are  called  the  New  England  States,  the  best- 
governed  portion  of  the  Union,  each  town  is 
a  corporation,  having  important  powers  and 
the  charge  of  all  purely  local  matters — chooses 
its  own  officers,  manages  its  own  finances, 
takes  charge  of  its  own  poor,  of  its  own  roads 


OONSTltUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.         276 

and  bridges,  and  of  the  education  of  its  own 
children.  Between  these  corporations  and  the 
State  government  are  the  counties,  that  take 
charge  of  another  class  of  interests,  more  gen- 
eral than  those  under  the  charge  of  the  town, 
but  less  general  than  those  of  the  State.  In  the 
great  central,  and  Northwestern  States  the  same 
system  obtains,  though  less  completely  earned 
out.  In  the  Southern  and  Southwestern  States, 
the  town  coi-porations  hardly  exist,  and  the 
rights  and  interests  of  the  poorer  classes  of  per- 
sons have  been  less  well  protected  in  them  than 
in  the  Northern  and  Eastern  States.  But  with 
the  abolition  of  slavery,  and  the  lessening  of 
tbe  influence  of  the  wealthy  slaveholding  class, 
with  the  return  of  peace  and  the  revival  of 
agricultural,  industrial,  and  commercial  pros- 
perity, the  New  England  system,  in  its  main 
features,  is  pretty  sure  to  be  gradually  intro- 
duced, or  developed,  and  the  division  of  powers 
in  the  State  to  be  as  effectively  and  as  system- 
atically carried  out  as  it  is  between  the  Gen- 
eral government  and  the  particular  or  State 
governments.  So,  though  universal  suffrage, 
good  as  far  as  it  goes,  is  not  alone  sufficient,  the 
division  of  powers  affords  with  it  a  not  inade- 
quate protection. 

No  government,  whose  workings  are  intrusted 


976  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIO. 

to  men,  ever  is  or  can  be  practically  perfect — 
secure  all  good,  and  guard  against  all  eviL  In 
all  human  governments  tliere  will  be  defects 
and  abuses,  and  lie  is  no  wise  man  who  expects 
perfection  from  imperfection.  But  the  Ameri- 
can constitution,  taken  as  a  whole,  and  in  all  its 
parts,  is  the  least  imperfect  that  has  ever  exist- 
ed, and  under  it  individual  rights,  personal 
freedom  and  independence,  as  well  as  public  au- 
thority or  society,  are  better  protected  than  un- 
der any  other ;  and  as  the  few  barbaric  elements 
retained  from  the  feudal  ages  are  eliminated, 
the  standard  of  education  elevated,  and  the 
whole  population  Americanized,  moulded  by 
and  to  the  American  system,  it  will  be  found  to 
effect  all  the  good,  with  as  little  of  the  evil,  as 
can  be  reasonably  expected  from  any  possible 
civil  government  or  political  constitution  of  so 
ciety. 


8ECESSI0IT. 


CHAPTER  Xn. 

8E0ES8I0N. 

The  doctrine  that  a  State  has  a  right  to  se- 
cede and  cany  with  it  its  population  and  do- 
main, has  been  effectually  put  down,  and  the 
unity  and  integrity  of  the  United  States  as  a 
sovereign  nation  have  been  effectively  asserted 
on  the  battle-field ;  but  the  secessionists,  though 
disposed  to  submit  to  superior  force,  and  de- 
mean themselves  henceforth  as  loyal  citizens, 
most  likely  hold  as  firmly  to  the  doctrine  as 
before  finding  themselves  unable  to  reduce  it  to 
practice,  and  the  Union  victory  will  remain  in- 
complete till  they  are  convinced  in  their  under- 
standings that  the  Union  has  the  better  reason 
AS  well  as  the  superior  military  resources.  The 
nation  has  conquered  their  bodies,  but  it  is  hardly 
less  important  for  our  statesmen  to  conquer 
their  minds  and  win  their  hearts. 

The  right  of  secession  is  not  claimed  as  a 
revolutionary  right,  or  even  as  a  conventional 
right.     The  secessionists  disclaim  revolutionary 


278  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

principles,  and  hold  that  the  right  of  secession 
is  anterior  to  the  convention,  a  right  which  the 
convention  could  neither  give  nor  take  away^ 
because  inherent  in  the  very  conception  of  a 
sovereign  State.  Secession  is  simply  the  repeal 
by  the  State  of  the  act  of  accession  to  the  Union; 
and  as  that  act  was  a  free,  voluntary  act  of  the 
State,  she  must  always  be  free  to  repeal  it.  The 
Union  is  a  copartnership ;  a  State  in  the  Union 
is  simply  a  member  of  the  firm,  and  has  the 
right  to  ^vithdj'aw  when  it  judges  it  for  its  in- 
terest to  do  so.  There  is  no  power  in  a  firm  to 
compel  a  copartner  to  remain  a  member  any 
longer  than  he  pleases.  He  is  undoubtedly 
holden  for  the  obligations  contracted  by  the 
firm  while  he  remains  a  member ;  but  for  none 
contracted  after  he  has  withdrawn  and  given 
due  notice  thereof 

So  of  a  sovereign  State  in  the  Union.  The 
Union  itself,  apart  from  the  sovereign  States 
that  compose  it,  is  a  mere  abstraction,  a  nullity^ 
and  binds  nobody.  All  its  substance  and  vital- 
ity are  in  the  agreement  by  which  the  States 
constitute  themselves  a  firm  or  copartnership,, 
for  certain  specific  purposes,  and  for  which  they 
open  an  office  and  establish  an  agency  under 
express  instructions  for  the  management  of  the 
general  affairs  of  the  firm.     The  State  is  held 


SECESSION.  279 

jointly  and  severally  for  all  the  legal  obliga- 
tions of  the  Union,  contracted  while  she  is  in 
it,  but  no  further ;  and  is  free  to  withdraw  when 
she  pleases,  precisely  as  an  individual  may 
withdraw  from  an  ordinary  business  firm. 
The  remaining  copartners  have  no  right  of 
compulsion  or  coercion  against  the  seceding 
member,  for  he,  saving  the  obligations  already 
contracted,  is  as  free  to  withdraw  as  they  are 
to  remain. 

The  population  is  fixed  to  the  domain,  and 
goes  with  it ;  the  domain  is  attached  to  the 
State,  and  secedes  in  the  secession  of  the  State. 
Secession,  then,  carries  the  entire  State,  govern- 
ment, people,  and  domain,  out  of  the  Union, 
and  restores  ipso  facto  the.  State  to  its  original 
position  of  a  sovereign  State,  foreign  to  the  United 
States.  Being  an  independent  sovereign  State, 
she  may  enter  into  a  new  confederacy,  form  a 
new  copartnership,  or  merge  herself  in  some 
other  foreign  state,  as  she  judges  proper  or  finds 
opportunity.  The  States  that  seceded  formed 
among  themselves  a  new  confederacy,  more  to 
their  mind  than  the  one  formed  in  1787,  as 
they  had  a  perfect  right  to  do,  and  in  the  war 
just  ended  they  were  not  rebels  nor  revolution- 
ists, but  a  people  fighting  for  the  right  of  self- 
government,  loyal  citizens  and  true  patriots  de- 


280  THE  AMERICAN  BEPUBLIC. 

fending  the  independence  and  inviolability  of 
their  country  against  foreign  invaders.  They 
are  to  be  honored  for  their  loyalty  and  patriot- 
ism, and  not  branded  as  rebels  and  punished 
as  traitors. 

This  is  the  secession  argument,  which  rests 
on  no  assumption  of  revolutionary  principles  or 
abstract  rights  of  man,  and  on  no  allegation  of 
real  or  imaginary  wrongs  received  from  the 
Union,  but  simply  on  the  original  and  inherent 
rights  of  the  several  States  as  independent  sov- 
ereign States.  The  argument  is  conclusive,  and 
the  defence  complete,  if  the  Union  is  only  a 
firm  or  copartnership,  and  the  sovereignty  vests 
in  the  States  severally.  The  refutation  of  the 
secessionists  is  in  the  facts  adduced  that  dis- 
prove the  theory  of  State  sovereignty,  and  prove 
that  the  sovereignty  vests  not  in  the  States 
severally,  but  in  the  States  united,  or  that  the 
Union  is  sovereign,  and  not  the  States  individ- 
ually. The  Union  is  not  a  firm,  a  copartner- 
ship, nor  an  artificial  or  conventional  union, 
but  a  real,  living,  constitutional  union,  founded 
in  the  original  and  indissoluble  unity  of  the 
American  people,  as  one  sovereign  people. 
There  is,  indeed,  no  such  people,  if  we  abstract 
the  States,  but  there  are  no  States  if  we  abstract 
this  sovereign  people  or  the  Union.    There  is 


SECESSION.  281 

no  Union  without  the  States,  and  there  are  no 
States  without  the  Union.  The  people  are  bom 
States,  and  the  States  are  born  United  States. 
The  Union  and  the  States  are  simultaneous, 
born  together,  and  enter  alike  into  the  original 
And  essential  constitution  of  the  American  state. 
This  the  facts  and  reasonings  adduced  fuUy  es- 
tablish. 

But  this  one  sovereign  people  that  exists 
only  as  organized  into  States,  does  not  necessa- 
rily include  the  whole  population  or  territory 
included  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  United 
States.  It  is  restricted  to  the  people  and  ter- 
ritory or  domain  organized  into  States  in  the 
Union,  as  in  ancient  Kome  the  ruling  people 
were  restricted  to  the  tenants  of  the  sacred  ter- 
ritory, which  had  been  surveyed,  and  its  boun- 
daries marked  by  the  god  Terminus,  and  which 
by  no  means  included  all  the  territory  held  by 
the  city,  and  of  which  she  was  both  the  private 
proprietor  and  the  public  sovereign.  The  city 
had  vast  possessions  acquired  by  confiscation, 
by  purchase,  by  treaty,  or  by  conquest,  and  in 
reference  to  which  her  celebrated  agrarian 
laws  were  enacted,  and  which  have  their  coun- 
terpart in  our  homestead  and  kindred  laws. 
In  this  class  of  territory,  of  which  the  city  was 
the  private  owner,  was  the  .territory  of  all  the 


282  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

Roman  provinces,  whicLi  was  held  to  be  only 
leased  to  its  occupants,  who  were  often  dis- 
possessed, and  their  lands  given  as  a  recompense^ 
by  the  consul  or  imperator  to  his  disbanded 
legionaries.  The  provincials  were  subjects  of 
Rome,  but  formed  no  part  of  the  Roman  peo- 
ple, and  had  no  share  in  the  political  power  of 
the  state,  till  at  a.late  period  the  privileges  of  Ro- 
man citizens  were  extended  to  them,  and  the 
Roman  people  became  coextensive  with  the  Ro- 
man empii'e.  So  the  United  States  have  held 
and  still  hold  large  territorial  possessions,  ac- 
quired by  the  acknowledgment  of  their  inde- 
pendence by  Great  Britain,  the  former  sover- 
eign, the  cession  of  particular  states,  and  pur- 
chase from  France,  Spain,  and  Mexico.  Till 
erected  into  States  and  admitted  into  the  Union, 
this  territory,  with  its  population,  though  sub- 
ject to  the  United  States,  makes  no  part  of 
the  political  or  sovereign  territoiy  and  people 
of  the  United  States.  It  is  under  the  Union^ 
not  in  it,  as  is  indicated  by  the  phrase  admit- 
ting into  the  Union — a  legal  phrase,  since  the 
constitution  ordains  that  "  new  States  may  be 
admitted  by  the  Congress  into  this  Union." 

There  can  be  no  secession  that  separates  a 
State  from  the  national  domain,  and  withdraws 
it  from  the  territorial  sovereignty  or  jurisdio* 


SECESSION.  28if 

tion  of  the  United  States ;  yet  what  hinders  a 
State  from  going  out  of  the  Union  in  the  sense- 
that  it  comes  into  it,  and  thus  ceasing  to  belong 
to  \hQ political  people  of  the  United  States? 

If  the  view  of  the  constitution  taken  in  the 
preceding  chapters  be  correct,  and  certainly  no 
facts  tend  to  disprove  it,  the  accession  of  a  Ter- 
ritory as  a  State  in  the  Union  is  a  free  act  of  the 
territorial  people.  The  Territory  cannot  organ- 
ize and  apply  for  admission  as  a  State,  without 
what  is  called  an  "enabling  act"  of  Congress 
or  its  equivalent ;  but  that  act  is  permissive,  not 
mandatory,  and  nothing  obliges  the  Territory 
to  organize  under  it  and  apply  for  admission. 
It  may  do  so  or  \iot,  as  it  chooses.  What^ 
then,  hinders  the  State  once  in  the  Union  from 
going  out  or  returning  to  its'  former  condition 
of  territory  subject  to  the  Union  ?  The  origi- 
nal States  did  not  need  to  come  in  under  a^ 
enabling  act,  for  they  were  born  States  in  the 
Union,  and  were  never  territory  outside  of  the 
Union  and  subject  to  it.  But  they  and  the 
new  States,  adopted  or  naturalized  States,  once 
in  the  Union,  stand  on  a  footing  of  perfect 
equality,  and  the  original  States  are  no  more 
and  no  less  bound  than  they  to  remain 
States  in  the  Union.  The  ratification  of 
the  constitution  by  .the   original  States  was  a 


284  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

free  act,  as  much  so  as  the  accession  of  a  new 
State  formed  from  territory  subject  to  the 
Union  is  a  free  act,  and  a  free  act  is  an  act 
which  one  is  free  to  do  or  not  to  do,  as  he 
pleases.  What  a  State  is  free  to  do  or  not  to 
do,  it  is  free  to  undo,  if  it  chooses.  There  is 
nothing  in  either  the  State  constitution  or  in 
that  of  the  United  States  that  forbids  it. 

This  is  denied .  The  population  and  domain 
are  inseparable  in  the  State ;  and  if  the  State 
could  take  itself  out  of  the  Union,  it  would  take 
them  out,  and  be  ipso  facto  a  sovereign  State 
foreign  to  the  Union.  It  would  take  the  do- 
main and  the  population  out  of  the  Union,  it  is 
<jonceded  and  even  maintained,  but  not  there- 
fore would  it  take  them  out  of  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  Union,  or  would  they  exist  as  a  State 
foreign  to  the  Union ;  for  population  and  terri- 
tory may  coexist,  as  Dacota,  Colorado,  or  New 
Mexico,  out  of  the  Union,  and  yet  be  subject 
to  the  Union,  or  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
United  States. 

But  the  Union  is  formed  by  the  surrender 
by  each  of  the  States  of  its  individual  sover- 
eignty, and  each  State  by  its  admission  into 
the  Union  surrenders  its  individual  sovereign- 
ty, or  binds  itself  by  a  constitutional  compact 
to  merge  its  individual  sovereignty  in  that  of 


SECESSION.  285 

the  whole.  It  then  cannot  cease  to  be  a  State 
in  the  Union  without  breach  of  contract.  Hav- 
ing surrendered  its  sovereignty  to  the  Union, 
or  bound  itself  by  the  constitution  to  exercise 
its  original  sovereignty  only  as  one  of  the  Uni- 
ted States,  it  can  unmake  itself  of  its  state 
character,  only  by  consent  of  the  United  States, 
or  by  a  successful  revolution.  It  is  by  virtue 
of  this  fact  that  secession  is  rebellion  against 
the  United  States,  and  that  the  General  govern- 
ment, as  representing  the  Union,  has  the  right 
and  the  duty  to  suppress  it  by  all  the  forces  at 
its  command. 

There  can  be  no  rebellion  where  there  is  no 
allegiance.  The  States  in  the  Union  cannot 
owe  allegiance  to  the  Union,  for  they  are  it,  and 
for  any  one  to  go  out  of  it  is'  no  more  an  act  of 
rebellion  than  it  is  for  a  king  to  abdicate  his 
throne.  The  Union  is  not  formed  by  the  sur- 
render to  it  by  the  several  States  of  their 
respective  individual  sovereignty.  Such  sur- 
render could,  as  we  have  seen,  form  only  an 
alliance,  or  a  confederation,  not  one  sovereign 
people ;  and  from  an  alliance,  or  confederation, 
the  ally  or  confederate  has,  saving  its  faith,  the 
inherent  right  to  secede.  The  argument  as- 
sumes that  the  States  were  originally  each  in  its 
individuality  a  sovereign  state,  but  by  the  con- 


S86  THE  AMERICAN  EEPUBLIC. 

vention  whicli  framed  the  constitution,  each 
surrendered  its  sovereignty  to  the  whole,  and 
thus  several  sovereign  states  became  one  sov- 
•ereign  political  people,  governing  in  general 
matters  through  the  General  government,  and 
in  particular  matters  through  particular  or 
State  governments.  This  is  Mr.  Madison's  the- 
ory, and  also  Mr.  Webster's;  but  it  has  been 
refuted  in  the  refutation  of  the  theory  that 
makes  government  originate  in  compact.  A 
sovereign  state  can,  undoubtedly,  surrender  its 
sovereignty,  but  can  surrender  it  only  to  some- 
thing or  somebody  that  really  exists;  for  to 
euiTcnder  to  no  one  or  to  nothing  is,  as  has  been 
shown,  the  same  thing  as  not  to  surrender  at 
all ;  and  the  Union,  being  formed  only  by  the 
surrender,  is  nothing  prior  to  it,  or  till  after  it 
is  made,  and  therefore  can  be  no  recipient  of 
the  surrender. 

Besides,  the  theory  is  the  reverse  of  the  fact. 
The  State  does  not  surrender  or  part  with  its 
sovereignty  by  coming  into  the  Union,  but 
acquires  by  it  all  the  rights  it  holds  as  a  State. 
Between  the  original  States  and  the  new 
States  there  is  a  difference  of  mode  by  which 
they  become  States  in  the  Union,  but  none  in 
their  powers,  or  the  tenure  by  which  they  hold 
them.     The  process  by  which  new  States  are 


SECESSION.  287 

actually  formed  and  admitted  into  the  Union, 
discloses  at  once  what  it  is  that  is  gained  or 
lost  by  admission.  The  domain  and  popula- 
tion, before  the  organization  of  the  Territory 
into  one  of  the  United  States,  are  subject  to  the 
United  States,  inseparably  attached  to  the  do- 
main of  the  Union,  and  under  its  sovereignty. 
The  Territory  so  remains,  organized  or  unor- 
ganized, under  a  Territorial  government  cre- 
ated by  Congress.  Congress,  by  an  enabling 
act,  permits  it  to  organize  as  a  State,  to  call  a 
convention  to  form  a  State  constitution,  to  elect 
under  it,  in  such  wav  as  the  convention  ordains, 
State  officers,  a  State  legislature,  and,  in  the  way 
prescribed  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  senators  and  representatives  in  Con- 
gress. Here  is  a  complete  organization  as  a 
State,  yet,  though  called  a  State,  it  is  no  State 
at  all,  and  is  simply  territory,  without  a  single 
particle  of  political  power.  To  be  a  State  it 
must  be  recognized  and  admitted  by  Congress 
as  a  State  in  the  Union,  and  when  so  recog- 
nized and  admitted  it  possesses,  in  union  with 
the  other  United  States,  supreme  political  sov- 
ereignty, jointly  in  all  general  matters,  and 
individually  in  all  private  and  particular  mat- 
tors. 

The  Territoiy  gives  up  no  sovereign  powers 


288  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBUO. 

by  coming  into  the  Union,  for  before  it  came 
into  the  Union  it  had  no  sovereignty,  no  polit- 
ical rights  at  alL  All  the  rights  and  powers  it 
holds  are  held  by  the  simple  fact  that  it  has 
become  a  State  in  the  Union.  This  is  as  true  of 
the  original  States  as  of  the  new  States ;  for  it 
has  been  shown  in  the  chapter  on  The  United 
States,  that  the  original  British  sovereignty  un- 
der which  the  colonies  were  organized  and  ex- 
isted passed,  on  the  fact  of  independence,  to  the 
States  united,  and  not  to  the  States  severally. 
Hence  if  nine  States  had  ratified  the  constitu- 
tion, and  the  other  four  had  stood  out,  and  re- 
fused to  do  it,  which  was  within  their  compe- 
tency, they  would  not  have  been  independent 
sovereign  States,  outside  of  the  Union,  but  Ter- 
ritories under  the  Union. 

Texas  forms  the  only  exception  to  the  rule 
that  the  States  have  never  been  independent 
of  the  Union.  All  the  other  new  States  have 
been  formed  from  territory  subject  to  the 
Union.  This  is  true  of  all  the  States  formed 
out  of  the  Territory  of  the  Northwest,  and  out 
of  the  domain  ceded  by  France,  Spain,  and 
Mexico  to  the  United  States.  All  these  ces- 
sions were  held  by  the  United  States  as  terri- 
tory immediately  subject  to  the  Union,  before 
being  erected  into  States ;  and  by  fiar  the  larger 


SECESSION.  289 

part  is  so  held  even  yet.  But  Texas  was  an 
independent  foreign  state,  and  was  annexed  as 
a  State  without  having  been  first  subjected  as 
territory  to  the  United  States.  It  of  course 
lost  by  annexation  its  separate  sovereignty. 
But  this  annexation  was  held  by  many  to  be 
unconstitutional ;  it  was  made  when  the  State 
sovereignty  theory  had  gained  possession  of  the 
Government,  and  was  annexed  as  a  State  in- 
stead of  being  admitted  as  a  State  formed  from 
territory  belonging  to  the  United  States,  for  the 
very  purpose  of  committing  the  nation  to  that 
theory.  Its  annexation  was  the  prologue,  as  the 
Mexican  war  was  the  first  act  in  the  secession 
drama,  and  as  the  epilogue  is  the  suppression 
of  the  rebellion  on  Texan  soil.  Texas  is  an 
exceptional  case,  and  forms  no  precedent,  and 
cannot  be  adduced  as  invalidating  the  general 
rule.  Omitting  Texas,  the  simple  fact  is,  the 
States  acquire  all  their  sovereign  powers  by 
being  States  in  the  Union,  instead  of  losing  or 
surrendering  them. 

Our  American  statesmen  have  overlooked  op 
not  duly  weighed  the  facts  in  the  case,  because, 
holding  the  origin  of  government  in  compact,  they 
felt  no  need  of  looking  back  of  the  constitution 
to  find  the  basis  of  that  unity  of  the  American 
people  which  they  assert.     Neither  Mr.  Madi- 

19 


290  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

son  nor  Mr.  Webster  felt  any  difficulty  in 
asserting  it  as  created  by  the  convention  of 
1787,  or  in  conceding  the  sovereignty  of  the 
States  prior  to  the  Union,  and  denying  its 
existence  after  the  ratification  of  the  constitu- 
tion. If  it  were  not  that  they  held  that  the 
State  originates  in  convention  or  the  social  com- 
pact, there  would  be  unpardonable  presumption 
on  the  part  of  the  present  writer  in  venturing 
to  hazard  an  assertion  contrary  to  theirs.  But, 
if  their  theoiy  was  unsound,  their  practical  doc- 
trine was  not;  for  they  maintained  that  the 
American  people  are  one  sovereign  people,  and 
Mr.  Quincy  Adams,  an  authority  inferior  to 
neither,  maintained  that  they  were  always  one 
people,  and  that  the  States  hold  from  the 
Union,  not  the  Union  from  the  States.  The 
States  without  the  Union  cease  to  exist  as  polit- 
ical communities :  tbe  Union  without  the  States 
ceases  to  be  a  Union,  and  becomes  a  vast  cen- 
tralized and  consolidated  state,  ready  to  lapse 
from  a  civilized  into  a  barbaric,  from  a  republi- 
can to  a  despotic  nation. 

The  State,  under  the  American  system,  as 
distinguished  from  Territory,  is  not  in  the 
domain  and  population  fixed  to  it,  nor  yet  in 
its  exteiior  organization,  but  solely  in  the  po- 
litical powers,  rights,  and  franchises  which  it 


SECESSION.  291 

•bolds  from  the  United  States,  or  as  one  of  the 
United  States.  As  these  are  rights,  not  obli- 
gations, the  State  may  resign  or  abdicate  them 
and  cease  to  be  a  State,  on  the  same  principle 
that  any  man  may  abdicate  or  forego  his  rights. 
In  doing  so,  the  State  breaks  no  oath  of  alle- 
giance, fails  to  fulfil  no  obligation  she  con- 
tracted as  a  State:  she  simply  forgoes  her 
political  rights  and  franchises.  So  far,  then, 
secession  is  possible,  feasible,  and  not  unconsti- 
tional  or  unlawful.  But  it  is,  as  Mr.  Sumner 
and  others  have  maintained,  simply  State  sui- 
cide. Nothing  hinders  a  State  from  commit- 
ting suicide,  if  she  chooses,  any  more  than  there 
was  something  which  compelled  the  Territory 
to  become  a  State  in  the  Union  against  its  will. 
It  is  objected  to  this  conclusion  that  the 
States  were,  prior  to  the  Union,  independent 
sovereign  States,  and  secession  would  not  de- 
stroy the  State,  but  restore  it  to  its  origi- 
nal sovereignty  and  independence,  as  the  seces- 
sionists maintain.  Certainly,  if  the  States  were, 
prior  to  the  Union,  sovereign  States  j  but  this 
is  precisely  what  has  been  denied  and  dis- 
proved ;  for  prior  to  the  Union  there  were  no 
States.  Secession  restores,  or  reduces,  rather, 
the  State  to  the  condition  it  was  in  before  its 
admission  into  the  Union;  but  that  condition 


292  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

is  that  of  Territory,  or  a  Territory  subject  to 
tLe  United  States,  and  not  that  of  an  indepen- 
dent sovereign  state.  The  State  holds  all  its 
political  rights  and  powers  in  the  Union  from 
the  Union,  and  has  none  out  of  it,  or  in  the  con- 
dition in  which  its  population  and  domain  were 
before  being  a  State  in  the  Union. 

State  suicide,  it  has  been  urged,  releases  its 
population  and  territory  fi'om  their  allegiance 
to  the  Union,  and  as  there  is  no  rebellion  where 
there  is  no  allegiance,  resistance  by  its  popula- 
tion and  territory  to  the  Union,  even  war 
against  the  Union,  would  not  be  rebellion,  but 
the  simple  assertion  of  popular  sovereignty. 
This  is  only  the  same  objection  in  another  form. 
The  lapse  of  the  State  releases  the  population 
and  territoiy  fi-om  no  allegiance  to  the  Union ; 
for  their  allegiance  to  the  Union  was  not  con- 
tracted by  their  becoming  a  State,  and  they 
have  never  in  their  State  character  owed  alle- 
giance to  the  United  States.  A  State  owes  no 
allegiance  to  the  United  States,  for  it  is  one  of 
them,  and  is  jointly  sovereign.  The  relation 
between  the  United  States  and  the  State  is 
not  the  relation  of  suzerain  and  liegeman  or 
vassal  A  State  owes  no  allegiance,  for  it  is  not 
subject  to  the  Union ;  it  is  never  in  their  Stat© 
capacity  that  its  population  and  territory  do  or 


SECESSION.  293 

can  rebel.  Hence,  the  Government  has  steadily 
denied  that,  in  the  late  rebellion,  any  State  as 
such  rebelled. 

But  as  a  State  cannot  rebel,  no  State  can  go 
out  of  the  Union ;  and  therefore  no  State  in  the 
late  rebellion  has  seceded,  and  the  States  that 
passed  secession  ordinances  are  and  all  along 
have  been  States  in  the  Union.  No  State  can 
rebel,  but  it  does  not  follow  therefrom  that  no 
State  can  secede  or  cease  to  exist  as  a  State :  it 
only  follows  that  secession,  in  the  sense  of  State 
suicide,  or  the  abdication  by  the  State  of  its 
political  rights  and  powers,  is  not  rebellion. 
Nor  does  it  follow  from  the  fact  that  no  State 
has  rebelled,  that  no  State  has  ceased  to  be  a 
State ;  or  that  the  States  that  passed  secession 
ordinances  have  been  all  along  States  in  the 
Union. 

The  secession  ordinances  were  illegal,  uncon- 
stitutional, not  within  the  competency  of  the 
State,  and  therefore  null  and  void  from  the  be- 
ginning. Unconstitutional,  illegal,  and  not 
within  the  competency  of  the  State,  so  far  as 
intended  to  alienate  any  portion  of  the  national, 
domain  and  population  thereto  annexed,  they 
certainly  were,  and  so  far  were  void  and  of  no 
effect ;  but  so  far  as  intended  to  take  the  State 
eimply  as  a  State  out  of  the  Union,  they  were 


394  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

• 

within  tLe  competency  of  the  State,  were  not 
illegal  or  unconstitutional,  and  therefore  not 
null  and  void.  Acts  unconstitutional  in  some 
parts  and  constitutional  in  others  are  not 
wholly  void.  The  unconstitutionality  vitiates 
only  the  unconstitutional  parts ;  the  others  are 
valid,  are  law,  and  recognized  and  enforced  as 
such  by  the  courts. 

The  secession  ordinances  are  void,  because 
they  were  never  passed  by  the  people  of  the 
State,  but  by  a  faction  that  overawed  them 
and  usurped  the  authority  of  the  State.  This- 
argument  implies  that,  if  a  secession  ordinance 
is  passed  by  the  people  proper  of  the  State,  it 
is  valid;  which  is  more  than  they  who  urge  it 
against  the  State  suicide  doctrine  are  prepared 
to  concede.  But  the  secession  ordinances  were 
in  every  instance  passed  by  the  people  of  the 
State  in  convention  legally  assembled,  there- 
fore  by  them  in  their  highest  State  capacity — 
in  the  same  capacity  in  which  they  ordain  and 
ratify  the  State  constitution  itself;  and  in  nearly 
all  the  States  they  were  in  addition  ratified  and 
confirmed,  if  the  facts  have  been  correctly  re- 
ported, by  a  genuine  plebiscitum,  or  direct  vote 
of  the  people.  In  all  cases  they  were  adopted 
by  a  decided  majority  of  the  political  people 
of  the  State,  and  after  their  adoption  they  were 


SECESSION.  295 

acquiesced  in  and  indeed  actively  supported  by- 
very  nearly  the  whole  people.  The  people  of 
the  States  adopting  the  secession  ordinances 
were  far  more  unanimous  in  supporting  seces- 
sion than  the  people  of  the  other  States  were 
in  sustaining  the  Government  in  its  efforts  to 
suppress  the  rebellion  by  coercive  measures.  It 
will  not  do,  then,  to  ascribe  the  secession  ordi- 
nances to  a  faction.  The  people  are  never  a 
faction,  nor  is  a  faction  ever  the  majority. 

There  has  been  a  disposition  at  the  North, 
encouraged  by  the  few  Union  men  at  the  South, 
to  regard  secession  as  the  work  of  a  few  ambi- 
tious and  unprincipled  leaders,  who,  by  their 
threats,  their  violence,  and  their  overbearing 
manner,  forced  the  mass  of  the  people  of  their 
respective  States  into  secession,  against  their 
convictions  and  their  will.  No  doubt  there 
were  leaders  at  the  South,  as  there  are  in 
every  great  movement  at  the  North ;  no  doubt 
there  were  individuals  in  the  seceding  States 
that  held  secession  wrong  in  principle,  and 
were  conscientiously  attached  to  the  Union; 
no  doubt,  also,  there  were  men  who  adhered  to 
the  Union,  not  because  they  disapproved  seces- 
sion, but  because  they  disliked  the  men  at  the 
head  of  the  movement,  or  because  they  were  • 
keen-sighted  enough  to  see  that  it  could  not 


296  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

succeed,  that  tlie  Union  must  be  the  winning 
side,  and  that  by  adhering  to  it  they  would 
become  the  great  and  leading  men  of  their  re- 
spective States,  w^hich  they  certainly  could  not 
be  under  secession.  Others  sympathized  fully 
with  what  was  called  the  Southern  cause,  held 
firmly  the  right  of  secession,  and  hated  cor- 
dially the  Yankees,  but  doubted  either  the 
practicability  or  the  expediency  of  secession, 
and  opposed  it  till  resolved  on,  but,  after  it  was 
resolved  on,  yielded  to  none  in  their  earnest 
support  of  it.  These  last  comprised  the  im- 
mense majority  of  those  who  voted  against 
secession.  Never  could  those  called  the  South- 
ern leaders  have  carried  the  secession  ordi- 
nances, never  could  they  have  carried  on  the 
war  with  the  vigor  and  determination,  and  with 
such  formidable  armies  as  they  collected  and 
armed  for  four  years,  making  at  times  the  des- 
tiny of  the  Union  wellnigh  doubtful,  if  they 
had  not  had  the  Southern  heart  with  them, 
if  they  had  not  been  most  heartily  supported 
by  the  overwhelming  m'ass  of  the  people.  They 
led  a  popular,  not  a  factious  movement. 

No  State,  it  is  said  again,  has  seceded,  or 
could  secede.  The  State  is  territorial,  not  per- 
sonal, and  as  no  State  can  carry  its  territory 
and  population  out  of  the  Union,  no  State  can 


SECESSION.  297 

flecede.  Out  of  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Union,  or 
alienate  them  from  the  sovereign  or  national  do- 
main, very  true ;  but  out  of  the  Union  as  a  State, 
with  rights,  powers,  or  franchises  in  the  Union, 
not  true.     Secession  is  political,  not  territorial. 

But  the  State  holds  from  the  territory  or  do- 
main. The  people  are  sovereign  because  at- 
tached to  a  sovereign  territory,  not  the  domain 
because  held  by  a  sovereign  people,  as  was 
established  by  the  analysis  of  the  early  Roman 
constitution.  The  territory  of  the  States  cor- 
responds to  the  sacred  ten-itory  of  Rome,  to 
which  was  attached  the  Roman  sovereignty. 
That  territory,  once  surveyed  and  consecrated, 
remained  sacred  and  the  ruling  territory,  and 
■could  not  be  divested  of  its  sacred  and  govern- 
ing character.  The  portions  of  the  territory 
of  the  United  States  once  erected  into  States 
and  consecrated  as  ruling  territory  can  never 
be  deprived,  except  by  foreign  conquest  or  suc- 
•cessful  revolution,  of  its  sacred  character  and 
inviolable  rights. 

The  State  is  territorial,  not  personal,  and  is 
constituted  \>j public^  not  by  private  wealth,  and 
is  always  respuhlica  or  commonwealth,  in  dis- 
tinction from  despotism  or  monarchy  in  its 
oriental  sense,  which  is  founded  on  private 
wealth,  or  which  assumes  that  the  authority  to 


298  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

govern,  or  sovereignty,  is  the  private  estate  of 
the  sovereign.  All  power  is  a  domain,  but 
there  is  no  domain  without  a  dominus  or  lord. 
In  oriental  monarchies  the  dominus  is  the  mon 
arch;  in  republics  it  is  the  public  or  people 
fixed  to  the  soil  or  territory,  that  is,  the  people 
in  their  territorial,  and  not  in  their  personal  or 
genealogical  relation.  The  people  of  the  Uni- 
ted States  are  sovereign  only  within  the  terri- 
tory or  domain  of  the  United  States,  and  their 
sovereignty  is  a  state,  because  fixed,  attached,, 
or  limited  to  that  specific  territory.  It  is  fixed 
to  the  soil,  not  nomadic.  In  barbaric  nations- 
power  is  nomadic  and  personal,'or  genealogical, 
confined  to  no  locality,  but  attaches  to  the  chief,, 
and  follows  wherever  he  goes.  The  Gothic- 
chiefs  hold  their  power  by  a  personal  title,  and 
have  the  same  authority  in  their  tribes  on  the 
Po  or  the  Rhone  as  on  the  banks  of  the  Elbe 
or  the  Danube.  Power  migrates  with  the  chief 
and  his  people,  and  may  be  exercised  where- 
ever  he  and  they  find  themselves,  as  a  Swedishi 
queen  held  when  she  ordered  the  execution 
of  one  of  her  subjects  at  Paris,  without  asking 
permission  of  the  territorial  lord.  In  these 
nations,  power  is  a  personal  right,  or  a  private 
estate,  not  a  state  which  exists  only  as  attached 
to  the  domain,  and,  as  attached  to  the  domain. 


SECESSION.  299^ 

exists  independently  of  the  chief  or  the  govern- 
ment. The  distinction  is  between  public  do- 
main and  private  domain. 

The  American  system  is"  republican,  and,  con- 
trary to  what  some  democratic  politicians  assert,^ 
the  American  democracy  is  territorial,  not  per- 
sonal ;  not  territorial  because  the  majority  of 
the  people  are  agriculturists  or  landholders,, 
but  because  all  political  rights,  powers,  or  fran^ 
chises  are  territorial.  The  sovereign  people  of 
the  United  States  are  sovereign  only  within  the 
territory  of  the  United  States.  The  great  body 
of  the  freemen  have  the  elective  franchise,,  but 
no  one  has  it  save  in  his  State,  his  county,  his 
town,  his  ward,  his  precinct.  Out  of  the  elec^ 
tion  district  in  which  he  is  domiciled,  a  citizen, 
of  the  United  States  has  no  more  right  to  vote 
than  has  the  citizen  or  subject  of  a  foreign* 
state.  This  explains  what  is  meant  by  the 
attachment  of  power  to  the  tenitory,  and  the 
dependence  of  the  state  on  the  domain.  The 
state,  in  republican  states,  exists  only  as  in- 
separably united  with  the  public  domain ;  un- 
der feudalism,  power  was  joined  to  territory  or 
domain,  but  the  domain  was  held  as  a  private^ 
not  as  a  public  domain.  All  sovereignty  rests- 
on  domain  or  proprietorship,  and  is  dominion^ 
The  proprietor  is  the  dominus  or  lord,  and  ii> 


300  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

republican  states  the  lord  is  society,  or  tlie 
public,  and  the  domain  is  held  for  the  common 
or  public  good  of  all.  All  political  rights  are 
held  from  society,  or  the  dominus,  and  there- 
fore it  is  the  elective  franchise  is  held  from  so- 
ciety, and  is  a  civil  right,  as  distinguished  from 
a  natural,  or  even  a  purely  personal  right. 

As  there  is  no  domain  without  a  lord  or 
dominus,  territory  alone  cannot  possess  any  po- 
litical rights  or  franchises,  for  it  is  not  a  domain. 
In  the  American  system,  the  dominus  or  lord 
is  not  the  particular  State,  but  the  United 
States,  arid  the  domain  of  tliO  whole  territory, 
whether  erected  into  particular  States  or  not, 
is  in  the  United  States  alone.  The  United 
States  do  not  part  with  the  dominion  of  that 
portion  of  the  national  domain  included  within 
a  particular  State.  The  State  holds  the  domain 
not  separately  but  jointly,  as  inseparably  one 
of  the  United  States :  separated,  it  has  no  do- 
minion, is  no  State,  and  is  no  longer  a  joint 
sovereign  at  all,  and  the  territory  that  it  in- 
cluded falls  into  the  condition  of  any  other  ter- 
ritory held  by  the  United  States  not  erected 
into  one  of  the  United  States. 

Lawyers,  indeed,  tell  us  that  the  eminent  do- 
main is  in  the  particular  State,  and  that  all  es- 
cheats   are  to  the  State,    not  to   the  United 


SECESSION.  301 

States.  All  escheats  of  private  estates,  but  no 
public  or  general  escbeats.  But  this  has  nothing 
to  do  with  the  public  domain.  The  United 
States  are  the  dominus,  but  they  have,  by  the 
constitution,  divided  the  powers  of  govern- 
ment be  ween  a  General  government  and  partic- 
ular State  governments,  and  ordained  that  all 
matters  of  a  general  nature,  common  to  all  the 
States,  should  be  placed  under  the  supreme 
control  of  the  former,  and  all  matters  of  a  pri- 
vate or  particular  character  under  the  supreme 
control  of  the  latter.  The  eminent  domain  of 
private  estates  is  in  the  particular  State, 
but  the  sovereign  authority  in  the  particular 
State  is  that  of  the  United  States  expressing 
itself  through  the  State  government.  The 
United  States,  in  the  States  as  well  as  out 
of  them,  is  the  dominus,  as  the  States  respect- 
ively would  soon  find  if  they  were  to  undertake 
to  alienate  any  part  of  their  domain  to  a  foreign 
power,  or  even  to  the  citizens  or  subjects  of  a 
foreign  State,  as  is  also  evident  from  the  fad; 
that  the  United  States,  in  the  way  prescribed 
by  the  constitution,  may  enlarge  or  contract  at 
will  the  rights  and  powers  of  the  States.  The 
mistake  on  this  point  grows  out  of  the  habit 
of  restricting  the  action  of  the  United  States  to 
the  General  government,  and  not  recollecting 


:908  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

that  the  United  States  govern  one  class  of  sub- 
jects through  the  General  government  and  an- 
.other  class  through  State  governments,  but  that 
it  is  one  and  the  same  authority  that  governs 
in  both. 

The  analogy  borrowed  from  the  Roman  con- 
stitution, as  far  as  applicable,  proves  the  reverse 
of  what  is  intended.  The  dominus  of  the  sacred 
territory  was  the  city,  or  the  Koman  state,  not  the 
sacred  territory  itself.  The  territory  received 
the  tenant,  and  gave  him  as  tenant  the  right  to 
a  seat  in  the  senate ;  but  the  right  of  the  terri- 
toiy  was  derived  not  from  the  domain,  but  from 
the  dominus,  that  is,  the  city.  But  the  city 
could  revoke  its  grant,  as  it  practically  did  when 
it  conferred  the  pnvileges  of  Koman  citizenship 
on  the  provincials,  and  gave  to  plebeians  seats 
in  the  senate.  Moreover,  nothing  in  Roman 
history  indicates  that  to  the  validity  of  a  sena- 
tus  consultum  it  was  necessary  to  count  the 
vacant  domains  of  the  sacred  territory.  The 
particular  domain  must,  under  the  American 
system,  be  counted  when  it  is  held  by  a  State, 
but  of  itself  alone,  or  even  with  its  population, 
it  is  not  a  State,  and  therefore  as  a  State  domain 
is  vacant  and  without  any  political  rights  or 
powers  whatever. 

To  argue  that  the  territory  and  population 


SECESSION.  303 

-once  a  State  in  the  Union  must  needs  always 
be  so,  would  be  well  enough  if  a  State  in  the 
Union  were  individually  a  sovereign  state ;  for 
territory,  with  its  population  not  subject  to  an- 
other, is  always  a  sovereign  state,  even  though 
its  government  has  been  subverted.  But  this 
is  not  the  fact,  for  temtory  with  its  population 
does  not  constitute  a  State  in  the  Union  ;  and, 
therefore,  when  of  a  State  nothing  remains  but 
territory  and  population,  the  State  has  evident- 
ly disappeared.  It  will  not  do  then  to  main- 
tain that  State  suicide  is  impossible,  and  that 
the  States  that  adopted  secession  ordinances 
have  never  for  a  moment  ceased  to  be  States  in 
the  Union,  and  are  free,  whenever  they  choose, 
to  send  theii*  representatives  and  senators  to 
occupy  their  vacant  seats  in  Congress.  They 
must  be  reorganized  first. 

There  would  also  be  some  embarrassment  to 
the  government  in  holding  that  the  States  that 
passed  the  secession  ordinance  remain,  notwith- 
standing, States  in  the  Union.  The  citizens  of 
a  State  in  the  Union  cannot  be  rebels  to  the 
United  States,  unless  they  are  rebels  to  their 
State ;  and  rebels  to  their  State  they  are  not, 
unless  they  resist  its  authority  and  make  war 
on  it.  The  authority  of  the  State  in  the  Union 
is  a  legal  authority,  and  the  citizen  in  obeying 


304  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC 

it  is  disloyal  neitlier  to  the  State  nor  to  the 
Union.  The  citizens  in  the  States  that  made 
war  on  the  United  States  did  not  resist  their 
State,  for  they  acted  by  its  authoidty.  The 
only  naen,  on  this  supposition,  in  them,  who 
have  been  traitors  or  rebels,  are  precisely  the 
Union  men  who  have  refused  to  go  with  their 
respective  States,  and  have  resisted,  even  with 
armed  force,  the  secession  ordinances.  The 
several  State  governments,  under  which  the  so- 
called  rebels  carried  on  the  war  for  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  Union,  if  the  States  are  in  the 
Union,  were  legal  and  loyal  governments  of 
their  respective  States,  for  they  were  legally 
elected  and  installed,  and  conformed  to  their 
respective  State  constitutions.  All  the  acts  of 
these  governments  have  been  constitutional 
Their  entering  into  a  confederacy  for  attaining 
a  separate  nationality  has  been  legal,  and  the 
debts  contracted  by  the  States  individually,  or 
by  the  confederacy  legally  formed  by  them, 
have  been  legally  contracted,  stand  good  against 
them,  and  perhaps  against  the  United  States, 
The  war  against  them  has  been  all  wrong,  and 
the  confederates  killed  in  battle  have  been 
murdered  by  the  United  States.  The  blockade 
has  been  illegal,  for  no  nation  can  blockade  its 
own  ports,  and  the  captures  and  seizures  under 


SECESSION.  306 

it,  robberies.  The  Supreme  Court  has  been 
wrong  in  declaring  the  war  a  territorial  civil 
war,  as  well  as  the  government  in  acting  ac- 
cordingly. Now,  all  these  conclusions  are 
manifestly  false  and  absurd,  and  therefore  the 
assumption  that  the  Stktes  in  question  have 
all  along  been  States  in  the  Union  cannot  be 
sustained. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  the  resistance  the 
Government  offers  to  the  doctrine  that  a  State 
may  commit  suicide,  or  by  its  own  act  abdicate 
its  rights  and  cease  to  be  a  State  in  the  Union. 
It  is  admissible  on  no  theory  of  the  constitu- 
tion that  has  been  widely  entertained.  It  is 
not  admissible  on  Mr.  Calhoun's  theory  of  State 
sovereignty,  for  on  that  theory  a  State  in  going 
out  of  the  Union  does  not  cease  to  be  a  State, 
but  simply  resumes  the  powers  it  had  dele- 
gated to  the  General  government.  It  cannot 
be  maintained  on  Mr.  Madison's  or  Mr.  We'h 
ster's  theory,  that  the  States  prior  to  the  Union 
were  severally  sovereign,  but  by  the  Union  were 
constituted  one  people ;  for,  if  this  one  people  are 
understood  to  be  a  federal  people,  State  seces- 
sion would  not  be  State  suicide,  but  State  inde- 
pendence ;  and  if  understood  to  be  one  consol 
idated  or  centralized  people,  it  would  be  simply 
insurrection  or  rebellion  against  the  national 

20 


306  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

authority,  laboring  to  make  itself  a  revolution. 
The  government  seems  to  have  understood  Mr. 
Madison's  theory  in  both  senses — in  the  consoli- 
dated sense,  in  declaring  the  secessionists  insur* 
'gents  and  rebels,  and  in  the  federal  sense,  in 
maintaining  that  they  have  never  seceded,  and 
are  still  States  in  the  Union,  in  full  possession 
of  all  their  political  or  State  rights.  Perhaps, 
if  the  government,  instead  of  borrowing  from 
contradictoiy  theories  of  the  constitution  which 
have  gained  currency,  had  examined  in  the 
light  of  historical  facts  the  constitution  itself, 
it  would  have  been  as  constitutional  in  its  doc- 
trine as  it  has  been  loyal  and  patriotic,  ener- 
getic and  successful  in  its  militaiy  administra- 
tion. 

Another  reason  why  the  doctrine  that  State 
secession  is  State  suicide  has  appeared  so  offen- 
sive to  many,  is  the  supposition  entertained  at 
one  time  by  some  of  its  friends,  that  the  disso- 
lution of  the  State  vacates  all  i-ights  and  fran- 
chises held  under  it.  But  this  is  a  mistake. 
The  principle  is  well  known  and  recognized  by 
the  jurisprudence  of  all  civilized  nations,  that 
in  the  transfer  of  a  territory  from  one  territo- 
rial sovereign  to  another,  the  laws  in  force 
under  the  old  sovereign  remain  in  force  after 
the  change,  till  abrogated,  or  others  are  enacted 


SECESSIOK.  307 

m  their  place  by  the  new  sovereign,  except 
isuch  as  are  necessarily  abrogated  by  the  change 
itself  of  the  sovereign ;  not,  indeed,  because  the 
old  sovereign  retains  any' authority,  but  because 
such  is  presumed  by  the  courts  to  be  the  will 
of  the  new  sovereign.  The  principle  applies 
in  the  case  of  the  death  of  a  State  in  the  Union. 
The  laws  of  the  State  are  territorial,  till  abro- 
gated by  competent  authority,  remain  the  lex 
looi^  and  are  in  full  force.  All  that  would  be  var 
cated  would  be  the  public  rights  of  the  State, 
and  in  no  case  the  private  rights  of  citizens, 
corporations,  or  laws  affecting  them. 

But  the  same  conclusion  is  reached  in  an 
other  way.  In  the  lapse  of  a  State  or  its  re- 
turn to  the  condition  of  a  Territory,  there  is 
really  no  change  of  sovereignty.  The  sover- 
eignty, both  before  and  after,  is  the  United 
States.  The  sovereign  authority  that  governs 
in  the  State  government,  as  we  have  seen, 
though  independent  of  the  General  govern- 
ment, is  the  United  States.  The  United  States 
govern  certain  matters  through  a  General  gov- 
ernment, and  others  through  particular  State 
governments.  The  private  rights  and  interests 
created,  regulated,  or  protected  by  the  particu- 
lar State,  are  created,  regulated,  or  protected  by 
Jthe  United  States,  as  much  and  as  plenarily  as 


308  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

if  done  by  the  General  government,  and  the 
State  laws  creating,  regulating,  or  protecting 
them  can  be  abrogated  by  no  power  known 
to  the  constitution,  but  either  the  State  itself, 
or  the  United  States  in  convention  legally 
assembled.  If  this  were  what  is  meant  by  the 
States  that  have  seceded,  or  professed  to  secede, 
remaining  States  in  the  Union,  they  would,  in- 
deed, be  States  still  in  the  Union,  notwithstand- 
ing secession,  and  the  government  would  be 
right  in  saying  that  no  State  can  secede.  But 
this  is  not  what  is  meant,  at  least  not  all  that 
is  meant.  It  is  meant  not  only  that  the  pri- 
vate rights  of  citizens  and  corporations  remain, 
but  the  citizens  retain  all  the  public  rights  of 
the  State,  that  is,  the  right  to  representation  in 
Congress  and  in  the  electoral  college,  and  the 
right  to  sit  in  the  convention,  which  is  not  trae. 
But  the  correction  of  the  misapprehension 
that  the  private  rights  and  interests  are  lost  by 
the  lapse  of  the  State  may  remove  the  graver 
prejudices  against  the  doctrine  of  State  suicide, 
and  dispose  loyal  and  honest  Union  men  to 
hear  the  reasons  by  which  it  is  supported,  and 
which  nobody  has  refuted  or  can  refute  on 
constitutional  grounds.  A  Territory  by  com- 
ing into  the  Union  becomes  a  State;  a  State 
by  going  out  of  the  Union  becomes  a  Temtorj'. 


RECONSTRUCTION.  309 


CHAPTEK    Xm. 

REGONSTRUGTION. 

The  question  of  reconstructing  the  States 
that  seceded  will  be  practically  settled  before 
these  pages  can  see  the  light,  and  will  therefore 
"be  considered  here  only  so  far  as  necessary  to 
complete  the  view  of  the  constitution  of  the 
United  States.  The  manner  in  which  the  gov- 
ernment proposed  to  settle,  has  settled,  or  will 
settle  the  question,  proves  that  both  it  and  the 
American  people  have  only  confused  views  of 
the  rights  and  powers  of  the  General  govern- 
ment, but  imperfectly  comprehend  the  distinc 
tion  between  the  legislative  and  executive  de- 
partments of  that  government,  and  are  far  more 
familiar  with  party  tactics  than  with  constitu- 
tional law. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  imagine  any  thing 
more  unconstitutional,  more  crude,  or  more 
glaringly  impolitic  than  the  mode  of  recon- 
struction indicated  by  the  various  executive 
proclamations  that  have  been  issued,  bearing  on 
the  subject,  or  even' by  the  bill  for  guaranteeing 
the  States  republican  governments,  that  passed 


310  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

Congress,  but  whicli  failed  to  obtain  tbe  Presi- 
dent's signature.  It  is,  in  some  measure,  char- 
acteristic of  the  American  government  to  un- 
derstand how  things  ought  to  be  done  only 
when  they  are  done  and  it  is  too  late  to  do 
them  in  the  right  way.  Its  wisdom  comes  after 
action,  as  if  engaged  in  a  series  of  experiments. 
But,  happily  for  the  nation,  few  blunders  are 
committed  that  with  our  young  life  and  elas- 
ticity are  irreparable,  and  that,  after  all,  are 
greater  than  are  ordinarily  committed  by  older 
and  more  experienced  nations.  They  are  not  of 
the  most  fatal  character,  and  are,  for  the  most 
part,  such  as  are  incident  to  the  conceit,  the  heed- 
lessness, the  ardor,  and  the  impatience  of  youth, 
and  need  excite  no  serious  alarm  for  the  future^ 
There  has  been  no  little  confusion  in  the 
public  mind,  and  in  that  of  the  government 
itself,  as  to  what  reconstruction  is,  who  has  the 
power  to  reconstruct,  and  how  that  power  is  to 
be  exercised.  Are  the  States  that  seceded 
States  in  the  Union,  with  no  other  disability 
than  that  of  having  no  legal  governments  ?  or  are 
they  Territories  subject  to  the  Union  ?  Is  their 
reconstruction  their  erection  into  new  States^ 
or  their  restoration  as  States  previously  in  the 
Union  ?  Is  the  power  to  reconstruct  in  the  States 
themselves  ?  or  is  it  in  the  General  government  I 


RECONSTRUCTION.  311 

If  partly  in  the  people  and  partly  in  the  Gen^ 
eral  government,  is  the  part  in  the  General 
government  in  Congress,  or  in  the  Executive  ? 
If  in  Congress,  can  the  Executive,  vrithout  the 
authority  of  Congress,  proceed  to  reconstruct, 
simply  leaving  it  for  Congress  to  accept  or 
reject  the  reconstructed  State?  If  the  power 
is  partly  in  the  people  of  the  disorganized 
States,  who  or  what  defines  that  people,  decides 
who  may  or  may  not  vote  in  the  reorganiza- 
tion? On  all  these  questions  there  has  been 
much  crude,  if  not  erroneous,  thinking,  and 
much  inconsistent  and  contradictory  action. 

The  government  started  with  the  theory 
that  no  State  had  seceded  or  could  secede,  and 
held  that,  throughout,  the  States  in  rebellion 
continued  to  be  States  in  the  Union.  That  is. 
it  held  secession  to  be  a  purely  personal  and 
not  a  territorial  insurrection.  Yet  it  proclaimed 
eleven  States  to  be  in  insurrection  against  the 
United  States,  blockaded  their  ports,  and  inter- 
dicted all  trade  and  intercourse  of  any  kind 
with  them.  The  Supreme  Court,  in  order  to 
sustain  the  blockade  and  interdict  as  legal, 
decided  the  war  to  be  not  a  war  against  simply- 
individual  or  personal  insurgents,  but  "  a  terri- 
torial civil  war."  This  negatived  the  assump- 
tion that'  the  States  that  took  up  arms  against 


613  THE  AMERICAK  REPUBLIC. 

the  United  States  remained  all  the  while  peace- 
able and  loyal  States,  with  all  their  political 
rights  and  powers  in  the  Union.  The  States  in 
the  Union  are  integral  elements  of  the  political 
sovereignty,  for  the  sovereignty  of  the  American 
nation  vests  in  the  States  united;  and  it  is 
absurd  to  pretend  that  the  e'leven  States  that 
made  th«  rebellion  and  were  carrying  on  a  for^ 
midable  war  against  the  United  States,  were  in 
the  Union,  an  integral  element  of  that  sovereign 
authority  which  was  carrying  on  a  yet  more 
formidable  war  against  them.  Nevertheless, 
the  government  still  held  to  its  first  assump- 
tion, that  the  States  in  rebellion  continued  to 
be  States  in  the  Union — loyal  States,  with  all 
their  rights  and  franchises  unimpaired  ! 

That  the  government  should  at  first  have 
favored  or  acquiesced  in  the  doctrine  that  no 
State  had  ceased  to  be  a  State  in  the  Union,  is 
not  to  be  wondered  at.  The  extent  and  deter- 
mination of  the  secession  movement  were  im- 
perfectly understood,  and  the  belief  among  the 
supporters  of  the  government,  and,  perhaps,  of 
the  government  itself,  was,  that  it  was  a  spas- 
modic movement  for  a  temporaiy  purpose, 
rather  than  a  fixed  determination  to  found  an 
independent  separate  nationality;  that  it  was 
and  would  be  sustained  by  the  real  majority 


RECONSTRUCTION.  313 

of  the  people  of  none  of  the  States,  with  per- 
haps the  exception  of  South  Carolina ;  that  the 
true  policy  of  the  government  would  be  to 
treat  the  seceders  with  great  forbearance,  to 
avoid  all  measures  likely  to  exasperate  them 
or  to  embarrass  their  loyal  fellow-citizens,  to 
act  simply  on  the  defensive,  and  to  leave  the 
Union  men  in  the  several  seceding  States  to 
gain  a  political  victory  at  the  polls  over  the 
secessionists,  and  to  return  their  States  to  their 
normal  position  in  the  Union. 

The  government  may  not  have  had  much 
faith  in  this  policy,  and  Mr.  Lincoln's  personal 
authority  might  be  cited  to  the  effect  that  it 
had  not,  but  it  was  urged  strongly  by  the 
Union  men  of  the  Border  States.  The  admin- 
istration was  hardly  seated  in  office,  and  its 
members  were  new  men,  without  administra- 
tive experience ;  the  President,  who  had  been 
legally  elected  indeed,  but  without  a  majority 
of  the  popular  votes,  was  far  from  having  the 
full  confidence  even  of  the  party  that  elected 
him;  opinions  were  divided;  party  spirit  ran 
high ;  the  excitement  was  great,  the  crisis  was 
imminent,  the  government  found  itself  left  by 
its  predecessor  without  an  army  or  a  navy,  and 
almost  without  arms  or  ordnance ;  it  knew  not 
how  far  it  could  count  on  popular  support,  and 


314  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

was  hardly  aware  whom  it  could  trust  or  shoul  J 
distrust ;  all  was  hurry  and  confusion ;  and 
what  could  the  government  do  but  to  gain 
time,  keep  off  active  war  as  long  as  possi- 
ble, conciliate  all  it  could,  and  take  ground 
which  at  the  time  seemed  likely  to  rally  the 
largest  number  of  the  people  to  its  support? 
There  were  men  then,  warm  friends  .of  the  ad- 
ministration, and  still  warmer  friends  of  their 
country,  who  believed  that  a  bolder,  a  less. 
timid,  a  less  cautious  policy  would  have  been 
wiser;  that  in  revolutionary  times  boldness, what 
in  other  times  would  be  rashness,  is  the  highest 
prudence,  on  the  side  of  the  government  a» 
well  as  on  the  side  of  the  revolution ;  that 
when  once  it  has  shown  itself,  the  rebellion 
that  hesitates,  deliberates,  consults,  is  defeated — 
and  so  is  the  government.  The  seceders  owed 
from  the  first  their  successes  not  to  their  supe- 
rior organization,  to  their  better  preparation^ 
or  to  the  better  discipline  and  appointment  of 
their  armies,  but  to  their  very  rashness,  to  their 
audacity  even,  and  the  hesitancy,  caution,  and 
deliberation  of  the  government.  Napoleon 
owed  his  successes  as  general  and  civilian  far 
more  to  the  air  of  power  he  assumed,  and  the 
conviction  he  produced  of  his  invincibility  in 
the  minds  of  his  opponents,^  than  to  his  civil  or 


RECONSTRUCTION.  316? 

military  strategy  and  tactics,  admirable  as  they 
botli  were. 

But  the  government  believed  it  wisest  to- 
adopt  a  conciliatory,  and,  in  many  respects,  a- 
temporizing  policy,  and  to  rely  more  on  weak- 
ening the  secessionists  in  their  respective  States 
than  on  strengthening  the  hands  and  hearts  of  its* 
own  stanch  and  uncompromising  supporters.  It 
must  strengthen  the  Union  party  in  the  insur- 
rectionary States,  and  as  this  party  hoped  to- 
succeed  by  political  manipulation  rather  than, 
by  military  force,  the  governmont  must  rely 
rather  on  a  show  of  military  power  than  on. 
gaining  any  decisive  battle.  As  it  hoped,  or 
'ajffected  to  hope,  to  suppress  the  rebellion  in^ 
the  States  that  seceded  through  their  loyal  citi- 
zens, it  was  obliged  to  assume  that  secession, 
was  the  work  of  a  faction,  of  a  few  ambitious 
and  disappointed  politicians,  and  that  the  States 
were  all  in  the  Union,  and  continued  in  the  loyal 
portion  of  their  inhabitants.  Hence  its  aid  tO' 
the  loyal  Virginians  to  organize  as  the  State- 
of  Virginia,  and  its  subsequent  efforts  to  organ- 
ize the  Union  men  in  Louisiana,  Arkansas,  and 
Tennessee,  and  its  disposition  to  recognize  their 
organization  in  each  of  those  States  as  the  State 
itself,  though  including  only  a  small  minority 
of  the  territorial  people.     Had  the  facts  been 


316  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

as  assumed,  the  government  might  have  treated 
the  loyal  people  of  each  State  as  the  State  it- 
self, without  any  gross  usurpation  of  power; 
but,  unhappily,  the  facts  assumed  were  not  facts, 
and  it  was  soon  found  that  the  Union  party  in 
all  the  States  that  seceded,  except  'the  western 
part  of  Virginia  and  the  eastern  section  of  Ten- 
nessee, after  secession  had  been  carried  by  the 
popular  vote,  went  almost  unanimously  with 
the  secessionists ;  for  they  as  well  as  the  seces- 
sionists held  the  doctrine  of  State  sovereignty ; 
and  to  treat  the  handful  of  citizens  that  re- 
mained loyal  .in  each  State  as  the  State  itself 
became  ridiculous,  and  the  government  should 
have  seen  and  acknowledged  it. 

The  rebellion  being  really  territorial,  and  not 
personal,  the  State  that  seceded  was  no  more 
continued  in  the  loyal  than  in  the  disloyal  pop- 
ulation. While  the  war  lasted,  both  were  pub- 
lic enemies  of  the  United  States,  and  neither 
had  or  could  have  any  rights  as  a  State  in  the 
Union.  The  law  recognizes  a  solidarity  of  all 
the  citizens  of  a  State,  and  assumes  that,  when 
^  State  is  at  war,  all  its  citizens  are  at  war, 
whether  approving  the  war  or  not.  The  loyal 
people  in  the  States  that  seceded  incurred  none 
"jf  the  pains  and  penalties  of  treason,  but  they 
j-etaiiied    none    of  the   political    rights  of  the 


REOONSTRUCTION.  317 

State  in  the  Union,  and,  in  reorganizing  the 
State  after  the  suppression  of  the  rebellion,  they 
have  no  more  right  to  take  part  than  the  se- 
cessionists themselves.  They,-  as  well  as  the 
secessionists,  have  followed  the  territory.  It 
was  on  this  point  that  the  government  com- 
mitted its  gravest  mistake.  As  to  the  reor- 
ganization or  reconstruction  of  the  State,  the 
whole  territorial  people  stood  on  the  same 
footing. 

Taking  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court 
as  conclusive  on  the  subject,  the  rebellion  was 
territorial,  and,  therefore,  placed  all  the  States 
as  States  out  of  the  Union,  and  retained  them 
only  as  population  and  territory  under  or  sub 
ject  to  the  Union.  The  States  ceased  to  exist, 
that  is,  as  integral  elements  of  the  national  sov- 
ereignty. The  question  then  occurred,  are  they 
to  be  erected  into  new  States,  or  are  they  to  be 
reconstnicted  and  restored  to  the  Union  as  the 
identical  old  States  that  seceded  ?  Shall  their 
identity  be  revived  and  preserved,  or  shall  they 
be  new  States,  regardless  of  that  identity  ? 
There  can  be  no  question  that  the  work  to  be 
done  was  that  of  restoration,  not  of  creation ;  no 
tribe  should  perish  from  Israel,  no  star  be 
struck  from  the  firmament  of  the  Unixjn.  Every 
inhabitant  of  the  fallen  States,  and  every  citi- 


£18   .  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

-zen  of  the  United  States  must  desire  them  to 
he  revived  and  continued  with  their  old  names 
and  boundaries,  and  all  true  Americans  wish 
to  continue  the'  constitution  as  it  is,  and  the 
Union  as  it  was.  Who  would  see  old  Vii'ginia, 
the  Virginia  of  revolutionary  fame,  of  Wash- 
ington, Jefferson,  Madison,  of  Monroe,  the  "  Old 
Dominion,"  once  the  leading  State  of  the 
Union,  dead  without  hope  of  resun-ection  ?  or 
South  Carolina,  the  land  of  Rutledge,  Moul- 
i,ne,  Laurens,  Hayne,  Slimter,  and  Marion  ? 
There  is  something  grating  to  him  who  values 
State  associations,  and  would  encourage  State 
■emulation  and  State  pride,  in  the  mutilation  of 
the  Old  Dominion,  and  the  erection  within  her 
borders  of  the  new  State  called  West  Virginia. 
States  in  the  Union  are  not  mere  prefectures,  or 
mere  dependencies  on  the  General  government, 
-created  for  the  convenience  of  administra- 
tion. They  have  an  individual,  a  real  exist- 
ence of  their  own,  as  much  so  as  have  the  in- 
dividual members  of  society.  They  are  free 
members,  not  of  a  confederation  indeed,  but  of 
a  higher  political  community,  and  reconstruc- 
tion should  restore  the  identity  of  their  indivi- 
<iual  life,  suspended  for  a  moment  by  secession, 
but  capable  of  resuscitation. 

These  States  had  become,  indeed,  for  a  mo- 


HECONSTRUCTIOK  319 

jnent,  territory  under  the  Union;  but  in  no 
instance  had  they  or  could  they  become  terri- 
tory that  had  never  existed  as  States.  The 
fact  that  the  territory  and  people  had  existed 
as  a  State,  could  with  regard  to  none  of  them 
be  obliterated,  and,  therefore,  they  could  not 
be  erected  into  absolutely  new  States.  The 
process  of  reconstructing  them  could  not  be  the 
same  as  that  of  creating  new  States.  In  ere 
ating  a  new  State,  Congress,  ex  necessitate,  be- 
cause there  is  no  other  power  except  the  nsr 
tional  convention  competent  to  do  it,  defines  the 
boundaries  of  the  new  State,  and  prescribes  the 
€lectoral  people,  or  who  may  take  part  in  the  pre- 
*liminary  organization;  but  in  reconstructing 
States  it  does  neither,  for  both  are  done  by  a  law 
Congress  is  not  competent  to  abrogate  or  modify, 
and  which  can  be  done  only  by  the  United 
States  in  convention  assembled,  or  by  the  State 
itself  after  its  restoration.  The  government 
has  conceded  this,  and,  in  part,  has  acted  on  it. 
It  preserves,  except  in  Virginia,  the  old  boun- 
daries, and  recognizes,  or  rather  professes  to 
recognize  the  old  electoral  law,  only  it  claims 
the  right  to  exclude  from  the  electoral  people 
those  who  have  voluntarily  taken  part  in  the 
rebellion. 

The  work  to  be  done  in  States  that  have  se- 


320  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

ceded  is  that  of  reconstmction,  not  creation ;. 
and  this  work  is  not  and  cannot  be  done  exclu- 
sively nor  chiefly  by  the  General  government, 
either  by  the  Executive  or  by  Congress.  That 
government  can  appoint  military,  or  even  pro- 
visional governors,  wh^  may  designate  the  time 
and  place  of  holding  the  convention  of  the  electo- 
ral people  of  the  disorganized  State,  as  also  the 
time  and  place  of  holding  the  elections  of  dele- 
gates to  it,  and  superintend  the  elections  so  far 
as  to  see  the  polls  are  opened,  and  that  none 
but  qualified  electors  vote,  but  nothing  more. 
All  the  rest  is  the  work  of  the  territorial  elec- 
toral people  themselves,  fpr  the  State  within  its 
own  sphere  must,  as  one  of  the  United  States,' 
be  a  self-governing  community.  The  General 
government  may  concede  or  withhold  permis- 
sion to  the  disorganized  State  to  reorganize,  as 
it  judges  advisable,  but  it  cannot  itself  reorgan- 
ize it.  ,  K  it  concedes  the  permission,  it  must 
leave  the  whole  electoral  people  under  the 
pre-existing  electoral  law  free  to  take  part  in 
the  work  of  reorganization,  and  to  vote  ac- 
cording to  their  own  judgment.  It  has  no  au- 
thority to  purge  the  electoral  people,  and  say 
who  may  or  may  not  vote,  for  the  whole  ques- 
tion of  suffrage  and  the  qualifications  of  electors 
is  left  to  the  State,  and  can  be  settled  neither 


BECONSTRUOTION.  821 

by  an  act  of  Congress  nor  by  an  Executive 
proclamation. 

If  the  government  tbeory  were  admissible, 
that  the  disorganized  States  remain  States  in 
the  Union,  the  General  government  could  have 
nothing  to  say  on  the  subject,  and  could  no 
more  interfere  with  elections  in  any  one  of  them 
than  it  could  with  elections  in  Massachusetts  or 
New  York.  But  even  on  the  doctrine  here  de- 
fended it  can  interfere  vrith  them  only  by  way 
of  general  superintendence.  The  citizens  have, 
indeed,  lost  their  political  rights,  but  not  their 
private  rights.  Secession  has  not  dissolved 
civil  society,  or  abrogated  any  of  the  laws  of 
the  disorganized  State  that  were  in  force  at  the 
time  of  secession.  The  error  of  the  government 
is  not  in  maintaining  that  these  laws  survive 
the  secession  ordinances,  and  remain  the  territo- 
rial law,  or  lex  lodj  but  in  maintaining  that  they 
do  so  by  will  of  the  State,  that  has,  as  a  State, 
really  lapsed.  They  do  so  by  will  of  the  Uni- 
ted States,  which  enacted  them  through  the  in- 
dividual State,  and  which  has  not  in  conven- 
tion abrogated  them,  save  the  law  authorizing 
slavery,  and  its  dependent  laws. 

This  point  has  already  been  made,  but  as  it 
is  one  of  the  niceties  of  the  American  constitu- 
tion, it  may  not  be  amiss  to  elaborate  it  at 


3SQ  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

greater  length.  The  doctrine  of  Mr.  Jefferson, 
Mr.  Madison,  and  the  majority  of  our  jurists, 
would  seem  to  be  that  the  States,  under  God, 
are  severally  sovereign  in  all  matters  not  ex- 
pressly confided  to  the  General  government, 
and  therefore  that  the  American  sovereignty  is 
divided,  and  the  citizen  owes  a  double  allegi- 
ance — alleo-iance  to  his  State,  and  alleoriance  to 
the  United  States — as  if  there  was  a  United 
States  distinguishable  from  the  States.  Hence 
Mr.  Seward,  in  an  official  dispatch  to  our  minis- 
ter at  the  court  of  St.  James,  says  r  "The  citizen 
owes  allegiance  to  the  State  and  to  the  United 
States."  And  nearly  all  who  hold  allegiance 
is  due  to  the  Union  at  all,  hold  that  it  is  also 
due  to  the  States,  only  that  which  is  due  to 
the  United  States  is  paramount,  as  that  under 
feudalism  due  to  the  overlord.  But  this  is  not 
the  case.  There  is  no  divided  sovereignty,  no 
divided  allegiance.  Sovereignty  is  one,  and 
vests  not  in  the  General  government  or  in  the 
State  government,  but  in  the  United  States,  and 
allegiance  is  due  to  the  United  States,  and  to 
them  alone.  Treason  can  be  committed  only 
against  the  United  States,  and  against  a  State 
only  because  against  the  United  States,  and  is 
properly  cognizable  only  by  the  Federal  courts. 
Hence  the  Union  men  committed  no  treason  in 


■RECONSTRUCTION.  323 

refusing  to  submit  to  the  secession  ordinances 
of  their  respective  States,  and  in  sustaining  the 
national  arms  aorainst  secession. 

There  are  two  very  common  mistakes :  the 
one  that  the  States  individually  possess  all  the 
powers  not  delegated  to  the  General  govern- 
ment; and  the  other  that  the  Union,  or  United 
States,  have  only  delegated  powers.  But  the 
United  States  possess  all  the  powers  of  a  sover- 
eign state,  and  the  States  individually  and  the 
General  government  possess  only  such  powers 
as  the  United  States  in  convention  delegate  to 
them  respectively.  The  sovereign  is  neither 
the  General  government  nor  the  States  sever- 
ally, but  the  United  States  in  convention.  The 
United  States  are  the  one  indivisible  sovereign, 
and  this  sovereign  governs  alike  general  mat- 
ters m  the  General  government,  and  particular 
matters  in  the  several  State  governments.  All 
legal  authority  in  either  emanates  from  this  one 
indivisible  and  plenary  sovereign,  and  hence 
the  laws  enacted  by  a  State  are  really  enacted 
by  the  United  States,  and  derive  from  them 
their  force  and  vitality  as  laws.  Hence,  as  the 
United  States  survive  the  particular  State,  the 
lapse  of  the  State  does  not  abrogate  the  State 
laws,  or  dissolve  civil  society  within  its  juris- 
diction 


824  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

This  is  evidently  so,  "because  civil  society  in 
the  particular  State  does  not  rest  on  the  State 
alone,  nor  on  Congress,  but  on  the  United 
States.  Hence  all  civil  rights  of  every  sort 
created  by  the  individual  State  are  really  held 
from  the  United  States,  and  therefore  it  was 
that  the  people  of  non-slaveholding  States  were, 
as  citizens  of  the  United  States,  responsible 
for  the  existence  of  slavery  in  the  States  that 
seceded.  There  is  a  solidarity  of  States  in 
the  Union  as  there  is  of  individuals  in  each  of 
the  States.  The  political  error  of  the  Aboli- 
tionists was  not  in  calling  upon  the  people  of 
the  United  States  to  abolish  slavery,  but  in 
calling  upon  them  to  abolish  it  through  the 
General  government,  which  had  no  jurisdiction 
in  the  case ;  or  in  their  sole  capacity  as  men, 
on  purely  humanitarian  grounds,  which  were 
the  abrogation  of  all  government  and  civil 
society  itself,  instead  of  calling  upon  them  to 
do  it  as  the  United  States  in  convention  assem- 
bled, or  by  an  amendment  to  the  constitution 
of  the  United  States  in  the  way  ordained  by 
that  constitution  itself  This  understood,  the 
constitution  and  laws  of  a  defunct  State  remain 
in  force  by  virtue  of  the  will  of  the  United 
States,  till  the  State  is  raised  from  the  dead, 
restored  to  life  and  activity,  and  repeals  or  al- 


RECONSTRUCTION.  325 

ters  them,  or  till  they  are  repealed  or  altered 
by  the  United  States  or  the  national  conven- 
tion. But  as  the  defunct  State  could  not,  and 
the  convention  had  not  repealed  or  altered 
them,  save  in  the  one  case  mentioned,  the 
Oeneral  government  had  no  alternative  but  to 
treat  them  and  all  rights  created  by  them 
as  the  territorial  law,  and  to  respect  them  as 
such. 

What  then  do  the  people  of  the  several 
States  that  seceded  los6  by  secession?  They 
lose,  besides  incurring,  so  far  as  disloyal,  the 
pains  and  penalties  of  treason,  their  political 
rights,  or  right,  as  has  just  been  said,  to  be  in 
their  own  department  self-governing  commu- 
nities, with  the  right  of  representation  in  Con- 
gress and  the  electoral  colleges,  and  to  sit  in 
the  national  convention,  or  of  being  counted  in 
the  ratification  of  amendments  to  the  consti- 
tution— ^precisely  what  it  was  shown  a  Terri- 
torial people  gain  by  being  admitted  as  a  State 
into  the  Union.  This  is  the  difference  between 
the  constitutional  doctrine  and  that  adopted 
by  Mr.  Lincoln's  and  Mr.  Johnson's  Adminis- 
trations. But  what  authority,  on  this  consti- 
tutional doctrine,  does  the  General  government 
gain  over  the  people  of  States  that  secede,  that 
it  has  not  over  others  ?     As  to  their  internal 


SS6  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC 

constitution,  their  private  rights  of  person  or 
property,  it  gains  none.  It  has  over  them,  till 
they  are  reconstructed  and  restored  to  the 
Union,  the  right  to  institute  for  them  provi- 
sional governments,  civil  or  military,  precisely 
as  it  has  for  the  people  of  a  territory  that  is 
not  and  has  never  been  one  of  the  United 
Statfes ;  but  in  their  reconstruction  it  has  less^ 
for  the  geographical  boundaries  and  electoral 
people  of  each  are  already  defined  by  a  law 
vrhich  does  not  depend  on  its  will,  and  which  it 
can  neither  Jabrogate  nor  modify.  Here  is  the 
difference  between  the  constitutional  doctrine 
and  that  of  the  so-called  radicals.  The  State 
has  gone,  but  its  laws  remain,  so  far  as  the 
United  States  in  convention  does  not  abrogate 
them ;  not  because  the  authority  of  the  State 
survives,  but  because  the  United  States  so  will, 
or  are  presumed  to  wilL  The  United  States 
have  by  a  constitutional  amendment  abrogated 
the  laws  of  the  several  States  authorizing 
slavery,  and  prohibited  slavery  forever  within 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  Union;  and  no  State 
can  now  be  reconstructed  and  be  admitted  into 
the  Union  with  a  constitution  that  permits, 
slaveiy,  for  that  would  be  repugnant  to  the 
constitution  of  the  United  States.  If  the  con- 
stitutional amendment  is  not  recognized  as  rati' 


EECONSTRUCTION.  327 

fied  by  the  requisite  number  of  States,  it  is  the 
fault  of  the  government  in  persisting  in  count- 
ing as  States  what  are  no  States.  Negro  suf- 
frage, as  white  suffrage,  is  at  present  a  question 
for  the  States. 

The  United  States  guarantee  to  such  State 
a  republican  fonn  of  government.  And  this 
guarantee,  no  doubt,  authorizes  Congress  to 
intervene  in  the  internal  constitution  of  a  State 
so  far  as  to  force  it  to  adopt  a  republican  form 
of  government,  but  not  so  far  as  to  organize  a 
government  for  a  State,  or  to  compel  a  territo- 
rial people  to  accept  or  adopt  a  State  constitu- 
tion for  themselves.  If'  a  State  attempts  to 
organize  a  form  of  government  not  republican, 
it  can  prevent  it ;  and  if  a  Temtory  adopts  an 
unrepublican  form,  it  can  force  it  to  change  its 
constitution  to  one  that  is  republican,  or  com- 
pel it  to  remain  a  Territory  under  a  provisional 
government.  But  this  gives  the  General  gov- 
ernment no  authority  in  the  organization  or 
re-organization  of  States  beyond  seeing  that 
the  form  of  government  adopted  by  the  terri- 
torial people  is  republican.  To  press  it  further, 
to  make  the  constitutional  clause  a  pretext  for 
assuming  the  entire  control  of  the  organization 
or  re-organization  of  a  State,  is  a  manifest  abuse 
— a  palpable  violation  of  the  constitution  and 


828  THB  AMERICAN  REPUBUO. 

of  the  whole  American  system.  The  authority 
given  l3y  the  clause  is  specific,  and  is  no 
authority  for  intervention  in  the  general  recon- 
struction of  the  lapsed  State.  It  gives  author- 
ity in  no  question  raised  by  secession  or  its 
consequences,  and  can  give  none,  except,  from 
within  or  from  without,  there  is  an  overt  at- 
tempt to  organize  a  State  in  the  Union  with  an 
Tinrepublican  form  of  government. 

The  General  government  gives  permission  to 
the  territorial  people  of  the  defunct  State  to 
re-organize,  or  it  contents  itself  with  suffeiing 
them,  without  special  recognition,  to  reorgan- 
ize in  their  own  way,  and  apply  to  Congress  for 
admission,  leaving  it  to  Congress  to  admit  them 
as  a  State,  or  not,  according  to  its  own  discre- 
tion, in  like  manner  as  it  admits  a  new  State ; 
but  the  re-organization  itself  must  be  the  work 
of  the  territorial  people  themselves,  under 
their  old  electoral  law.  The  power  that  recon- 
structs is  in  the  people  themselves ;  the  power 
that  admits  them,  or  receives  them  into  the 
Union,  is  Congress.  The  Executive,  therefore, 
has  no  authority  in  the  matter,  beyond  that  of 
seeing  that  the  laws  are  duly  complied  with ; 
and  whatever  power  he  assumes,  whether  by 
proclamation  or  by  instructions  given  to  the 
provisional    governors,    civil    or    military,   is 


RECONSTRUCTION  329 

«imply  a  usurpation  of  the  power  of  Congress, 
wliicli  it  rests  with  Congress  to  condone  or  not, 
as  it  may  see  fit.  Executive  pi'oclamations, 
excluding  a  larger  or  a  smaller  portion  of  tlie 
electoral  or  territorial  people  fi-om  the  exercise 
of  the  elective  franchise  in  re-organizing  the 
•State,  and  executive  efforts  to  throw  the  State 
into  the  hands  of  one  political  party  or  another, 
are  an  unwarrantable  assumption  of  power,  for 
the  President,  in  relation  to  reconstruction,  acts 
only  under  the  peace  powers  of  the  constitu- 
tion, and  simply  as  the  first  executive  officer  of 
the  Union.  His  business  is  to  execute  the  laws, 
not  to  make  them.  His  legislative  authority  is 
confined  to  his  qualified  veto  on  the  acts  of 
Congress,  and  to  the  recommendation  to  Con- 
gress of  such  measures  as  he  believes  are  needed 
by  the  country. 

In  reconstructing  a  disorganized  State,  neither 
Congress  nor  the  Executive  has  any  power  that 
either  has  not  in  time  of  peace.  The  Executive, 
as  commander-in-chief  of  the  army,  may  ex  neces- 
sitate place  it  ad  inteinm  under  a  military  gov- 
ernor, but  he  cannot  appoint  even  a  provisional 
civil  governor  till  Congress  has  created  the 
office  and  given  him  authority  to  fill  it ;  far  less 
can  he  legally  give  instructions  to  the  civil 
governor  as  to  the  mode  or  manner  of  recon- 


330  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

stmcting  the  disorganized  State,  or  decide  wha 
may  or  may  not  vote  in  the  preliminary  re- 
organization. The  Executive  could  do  nothing 
of  the  sort,  even  in  regard  to  a  Territory  never 
erected  into  a  State.  It  belongs  to  Congress^ 
not  to  the  Executive,  to  erect  Territorial  or  pro- 
visional governments,  like  those  of  Dacotah, 
Colorado,  Montana,  Nebraska,  and  New  Mexico ; 
and  Congi-ess,  not  the  executive,  determines  the 
boundaries  of  the  Territory,  passes  the  enabling 
act,  and  defines  the  electoial  people,  till  the^ 
State  is  organized  and  able  to  act  herself* 
Even  Congress,  in  reconstructing  and  restoring 
to  life  and  vigor  in  the  Union  a  disorganized 
State,  has  nothing  to  say  as  to  its  boundaries  or 
its  electoral  people,  nor  any  right  to  interfere 
between  parties  in  the  State,  to  throw  the 
reconstructed  State  into  the  hands  of  one  or 
another  party.  All  that  Congress  can  insist  on 
is,  that  the  territorial  people  shall  reconstruct 
with  a  government  republican  in  form;  that  its 
senators  and  representatives  in  Congress,  and 
the  members  of  the  Stfcte  legislature,  and  all 
executive  and  judicial  officers  of  the  State  shall 
be  bound  by  oath  or  affirmation  to  support  and 
defend  the  constitution  of  the  United  States. 
In  the  whole  work  the  President  has  nothing 
to  do  with  reconstruction,  except  to  see  that 


RECONSTRUCTION.  381 

peace  is  preserved  and  the  laws  are  fully  exe- 
cuted. 

It  may  be  at  least  doubted  that  the  Executive 
has  power  to  proclaim  amnesty  and  pardon  to 
rebels  after  the  civil  war  has  ceased,  and  ceased 
it  has  when  the  rebels  have  thrown  down  their 
arms  and  submitted;  for  his  pardoning  power 
is  only  to  pardon  after  conviction  and  judg 
ment  of  the  court :  it  is  certain  that  he  has  no 
power  to  proscribe  or  punish  even  traitors^ 
except  by  due  process  of  law.  When  the  war 
is  over  he  has  only  his  ordinary  peace  powers. 
He  cannot  then  disfranchise  any  portion  of  the 
electoral  people  of  a  State  that  seceded,  even 
though  there  is  no  doubt  that  they  have  taken 
part  in  the  rebellion,  and  may  still  be  suspected 
of  disloyal  sentiments.  Not  even  Congress  can 
do  it,  and  no  power  known  to  the  constitution 
till  the  State  is  reconstructed  can  do  it  without 
due  process  of  law,  except  the  national  conven- 
tion. Should  the  President  do  any  of  the 
things  supposed,  he  would  both  abuse  the 
power  he  has  and  usurp  power  that  he  has 
not,  and  render  himself  liable  to  impeachment. 
There  are  many  things  very  proper,  and  even 
necessary  to  be  done,  which  are  high  crimes 
when  done  by  aji  improper  person  or  agent. 
The  duty  of  the   President,  when  there  ar(* 


332  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

«teps  to  be  taken  or  things  to  be  done  which 
he  believes  very  necessary,  but  which  are  not 
within  his  competency,  is,  if  Congress  is  not  in 
session,  to  call  it  together  at  the  earliest  practi- 
cable moment,  and  submit  the  matter  to  its 
wisdom  and  discretion. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  late  rebel- 
lion was  not  a  merely  personal  but  a  territorial 
rebellion.  In  such  a  rebellion,  embracing  eleven 
•States,  and,  excluding  slaves,  a  population  of 
at  least  seven  millions,  acting  under  an  organ- 
ized territorial  government,  preserving  internal 
civil  order,  supporting  an  army  and  navy  under 
regularly  commissioned  officers,  and  carrying  on 
war  as  a  sovereign  nation — ^in  such  a  territorial 
rebellion  no  one  in  particular  can  be  accused 
and  punished  as  a  traitor.  The  rebellion  is  not 
the  work  of  a  few  ambitious  or  reckless  leaders, 
but  of  the  people,  and  the  responsibility  of  the 
crime,  whether  civil  or  military,  is  not  indi- 
vidual, but  common  to  the  whole  territorial 
people  engaged  in  it ;  and  seven  millions,  or  the 
half  of  them,  are  too  many  to  hang,  to  exile,  or 
even  to  disfranchise.  Their  defeat  and  the 
failure  of  their  cause  must  be  their  punishment. 
The  interest  of  the  country,  as  well  the  sentiment 
■of  the  civilized  world — it  might  almost  be  said 
the  law  of  nations — demands  their  permission 


EECONSTEUCTION.  33S 

to  return  to  their  allegiance,  to  be  treated 
according  to  their  future  merits,  as  an  integral 
portion  of  the  American  people. 

The  sentiment  of  the  civilized  world  has 
much  relaxed  from  its  former  severity  toward 
political  offenders.  It  regards  with  horror  the 
savage  cruelties  of  Great  Britain  to  tlie  unfor- 
tunate Jacobites,  after  their  defeat  under  Charle?: 
Edward,  at  Culloden,  in  1746,  their  barbarous 
treatment  of  the  United  Irishmen  in  1798,  and 
her  brutality  to  the  mutinous  Hindoos  in  1867- 
'58 ;  the  harshness  of  Russia  toward  the  insurgent 
Poles,  defeated  in  their  mad  attempts  to  recover 
their  lost  nationality  ;  the  severity  of  Austria, 
under  Haynau,  toward  the  defeated  Magyars.' 
The  liberal  press  kept  up  for  years,  especially 
in  England  and  the  United  States,  a  perpetual 
howl  against  the  Papal  and  Neapolitan  govern- 
ments for  arresting  and  imprisoning  men  who 
conspired  to  overthrow  them.  Louis  Kossuth 
was  no  less  a  traitor  than  Jefferson  Davis,  and 
yet  the  United  States  solicited  his  release  from 
a  Turkish  prison,  and  sent  a  national  ship  to 
bring  him  hither  as  the  nation's  guest.  The 
people  of  the  United  States  have  held  from  the 
first  "  the  right  of  insurrection,"  and  have  given 
their  moral  support  to  every  insurrection  in  the 
Old  or  New  World  they  discovered,  and  for  them. 


.334  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

to  treat  with  severity  any  portion  of  the  South- 
em  secessionists,  who,  at  the  very  worst,  only 
acted  on  the  principles  the  nation  had  uni- 
formly avowed  and  pronounced  sacred,  would 
be  regarded,  and  justly,  by  the  civilized  world, 
as  little  less  than  infamous. 

Not  only  the  fair  fame,  but  the  interest  of 
the  Union  forbids  any  severity  toward  the  peo- 
ple lately  in  arms  against  the  government.  The 
interest  of  the  nation  demands  not  the  death  or 
the  expulsion  of  the  secessionists,  and,  least  of 
all,  of  those  classes  prosciibed  by  the  Presi- 
dent's proclamation  of  the  29th  of  May,  1865,  nor 
even  their  disfranchisement,  perpetual  or  tempo- 
rary; but  their  restoration  to  citizenship,  and 
their  loyal  co-operation  with  all  true-hearted 
Americans,  in  healine^  the  wounds  inflicted  on 
the  whole  country  by  the  civil  war.  There 
need  be  no  fear  to  trust  them.  Their  cause  is 
lost ;  they  may  or  may  not  regret  it,  but  lost  it 
is,  and  lost  forever.  They  appealed  to  the  bal- 
lot-box, and  were  defeated  ;  they  appealed  fi'om 
the  ballot-box  to  arms,  to  war,  and  have  been 
again  defeated,  terribly  defeated.  They  know 
it  and  feel  it.  There  is  no  further  appeal  for 
them  ;  the  judgment  of  the  court  of  last  resort 
has  been  rendered,  and  rendered  against  them. 
The  cause  is  finished,  the  controversy  closed, 


•RECONSTRDCTIOK  335 

mever  to  "be  re-opened.  Henceforth  the  Uniou 
is  invincible,  and  it  is  worse  than  idle  to  at- 
tempt to  renew  the  war  against  it.  Hencefoi-th 
their  lot  is  bound  up  with  that  of  the  nation, 
and  all  their  hopes  and  interests,  for  themselves 
and  their  children,  and  their  children's  children, 
depend  on  their  being  permitted  to  demean 
themselves  henceforth  as  peaceable  and  loyal 
American  citizens.  They  must  seek  their  free- 
dom, greatness,  and  glory  in  the  freedom, 
greatness,  and  glory  of  the  American  republic, 
in  which,  after  all,  they  can  be  far  freer,  greater, 
more  glorious  than  in  a  separate  and  inde- 
pendent confederacy.  All  the  arguments  and 
Kjonsiderations  urged  by  Union  men  against 
their  secession,  come  back  to  them  now  with 
redoubled  force  to  keep  them  henceforth  loyal 
to  the  Union. 

They  cannot  afford  to  lose  the  nation,  and 
the  nation  cannot  afford  to  lose  them.  To  hang 
or  exile  them,  and  depopulate  and  suffer  to  run 
to  waste  the  lands  they  had  cultivated,  were 
sad  thrift,  sadder  than  that  of  deporting  four 
millions  of  negroes  and  colored  men.  To  ex- 
change only  those  excepted  from  amnesty  and 
pardon  by  President  Johnson,  embracing  some 
two  millions  or  more,  the  yqvj  pars  sanior  of 
the  Southern  population,  for  what  would  re- 


336  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC 

main  or  flock  in  to  supply  their  place,  would 
be  only  the  exchange  of  Glaucus  and  Diomed^ 
gold  for  brass  ;  to  disfranchise  them,  confiscate 
their  estates,  and  place  them  under  the  politi- 
cal control  of  the  freedmen,  lately  their  slaves, 
and  the  ignorant  and  miserable  "  white  trash," 
would  be  simply  to  render  rebellion  chronic, 
and  to  convert  seven  millions  of  Americans, 
willing  and  anxious  to  be  free,  loyal  Ameri- 
can citizens,  into  eternal  enemies.  They  have 
yielded  to  superior  numbers  and  resources; 
beaten,  but  not  disgraced,  for  they  have,  even  in 
rebellion,  proved  themselves  what  they  are — 
real  Americans.  They  are  the  product  of  the 
American  soil,  the  free  growth  of  the  Ameri- 
can republic,  and  to  disgrace  them  were  to  dis- 
grace the  whole  American  character  and  peo- 
ple. 

The  wise  Romans  never  allowed  a  triumph  to 
a  Roman  general  for  victories,  however  brilliant, 
won  over  Romans.  In  civil  war,  the  victory 
won  by  the  government  troops  is  held  to  be  a 
victory  for  the  country,  in  which  all  parties  are 
victors,  and  nobody  is  vanquished.  It  was  as 
truly  for  the  good  of  the  secessionists  to  fail,  as 
it  was  for  those  who  sustained  the  government 
to  succeed ;  and  the  government  having  forced 
their  submission  and  vindicated  its  own  author- 


RECONSTRUCTION.  337 

ity,  it  should  now  leave  them  to  enjoy,  with 
others,  the  victory  which  it  has  won  for  the 
common  good  of  all.  When  war  becomes  a  stern 
necessity,  when  it  breaks  out,  and  while  it  lasts, 
humanity  requires  it  to  be  waged  in  earnest, 
prosecuted  with  vigor,  and  made  as  damaging,  as 
di^ressful  to  the  enemy  as  the  laws  of  civilized 
nations  permit.  It  is  the  way  to  bring  it  to  a 
speedy  close,  and  to  save  life  and  property. 
But  when  it  is  over,  when  the  enemy  submits,  and 
peace  returns,  the  vanquished  should  be  treated 
with  gentleness  and  love.  No  rancor  should 
remain,  no  vengeance  should  be  sought;  they 
who  met  in  mortal  conflict  on  the  battle-field 
should  be  no  longer  enemies,  but  embrace  as 
comrades,  as  friends,  as  brothers.  None  but  a 
coward  kicks  a  fallen  foe;  a  brave  people  is 
generous,  and  the  victors  in  the  late  war  can 
afford  to  be  generous  generously.  They  fought 
for  the  Union,  and  the  Union  has  no  longer  an 
enemy ;  their  late  enemies  are  wilKng  and 
proud  to  be  their  countrymen,  fellow-citizens, 
and  friends;  and  they  should  look  to  it  that 
small  politicians  do  not  rob  them  in  the  eyes 
of  the  world,  by  unnecessary  and  ill-timed 
severity  to  the  submissive,  of  the  glory  of  be- 
ing, as  they  are,  a  great,  noble,  chivalric,  gen- 
erous, and  magnanimous  people. 


338  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

The  government  and  the  small  politicians, 
who  usually  are  the  most  influential  with  all 
governments,  should  remember  that  none  of  the 
secessionists,  however  much  in  error  they  have 
been,  have  committed  the  moral  crime  of  trea- 
son. They  held,  with  the  majority  of  the 
American  people,  the  doctrine  of  State  sover- 
eignty, and  on  that  doctrine  they  had  a  light 
to  secede,  and  have  committed  no  treason,  been 
guilty  of  no  rebellion.  That  was,  indeed,  no 
reason  why  the  government  should  not  use  all 
its  force,  if  necessary,  to  preserve  the  national 
unity  and  the  integrity  of  the  national  domain ; 
but  it  is  a  reason,  and  a  sufficient  reason,  why 
no  penalty  of  treason  should  be  inflicted  on 
secessionists  or  their  leaders,  after  their  submis- 
sion, and  recognition  of  the  sovereignty  of  the 
United  States  as  that  to  which  they  owe 
allegiance.  None  of  the  secessionists  have 
been  rebels  or  traitors,  except  in  outward  act, 
and  there  can,  after  the  act  has  ceased,  be  no 
just  punishment  where  there  has  been  no  crim- 
inal intent.  Treason  is  the  highest  crime,  and 
deserves  exemplary  punishment ;  but  not  where 
there  has  been  no  treasonable  intent,  where  they 
who  committed  it  did  not  believe  it  was  treason, 
and  on  principles  held  by  the  majority  of  their 
countrymen,  and  by  the  party  that  had  gener- 


RECONSTRUCTION.  339 

ally  held  the  government,  there  really  was  no 
treason.  Concede  State  sovereignty,  and  Jeffer- 
son Davis  was  no  traitor  in  the  war  he  made 
on  the  United  States,  for  he  made  none  till  his 
State  had  seceded.  He  could  not  then  be  ar- 
raigned for  his  acts  after  secession,  and  at  most, 
only  for  conspiracy,  if  at  all,  before  secession. 

But,  if  you  permit  all  to  vote  in  the  re-organ- 
ization of  the  State  who,  under  the  old  electoral 
law,  have  the  elective  franchise,  you  throw  the 
State  into  the  hands  of  those  who  have  been 
disloyal  to  the  Union.  If  so,  and  you  cannot 
trust  them,  the  remedy  is  not  in  disfranchising 
the  majority,  but  in  prohibiting  re-organization, 
and  in  holding  the  territorial  people  still  longer 
under  the  provisional  government,  civil  or  mili- 
tary. The  old  electoral  law  disqualifies  all  who 
have  been  convicted  of  treason  eithei»>  to  the 
State  or  the  United  States,  and  neither  Con- 
gress nor  the  Executive  can  declare  any  others 
disqualified  on  account  of  disloyalty.  But  you 
must  throw  the  State  into  the  hands  of  those 
who  took  part,  directly  or  indirectly,  in  the 
rebellion,  if  you  reconstruct  the  States  at  all, 
for  they  are  undeniably  the  great  body  of  the 
territorial  people  in  all  the  States  that  seceded. 
These  people  having  submitted,  and  declared 
their  intention  to  reconstruct  the  State  as  a 


340  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

State  in  the  Union,  you  must  amend  the  consti- 
tution of  the  United  States,  unless  they  are 
convicted  of  a  disqualifying  crime  by  due  pro- 
cess of  law,  before  you  can  disfranchise  them. 
It  is  impossible  to  reconstruct  any  one  of  the 
disorganized  States  with  those  alone,  or  as  the 
dominant  party,  who  have  adhered  to  the 
Union  throughout  the  fearful  struggle,  as  self- 
governing  States.  The  State,  resting  on  so- 
small  a  portion  of  the  people,  would  have  na 
internal  strength,  no  self  support,  and  could 
stand  only  as  upheld  by  Federal  arms,  which 
would  greatly  impair  the  free  and  healthy 
action  of  the  whole  American  system. 

The  government  attempted  to  do  it  in  Vir- 
gmia,  Louisiana,  Arkansas,  and  Tennessee,  be- 
fore the  rebellion  was  suppressed,  but  without 
authority  and  without  success.  The  organiza- 
tions, effected  at  great  expeilse,  and  sustained 
only  by  military  force,  were  neither  States  nor 
State  governments,  nor  capable  of  being  made 
so  by  any  executive  or  congressional  action. 
If  the  disorganized  States,  as  the  government 
held,  were  still  States  in  the  Union,  these  or- 
ganizations were  flagrantly  revolutionary,  as 
effected  not  only  without,  but  in  defiance  of 
State  authority ;  if  they  had  seceded  and  ceased 
to  be  States,  as  was  the  fact,  they  were  equally 


RECONSTRUCTION.  341 

tinconstitutional  and  void  of  authority,  because 
not  created  by  the  free  sujffrage  of  the  territo- 
rial people,  who  alone  are  competent  to  con- 
struct or  reconstruct  a  State. 

If  the  Unionists  had  retained  the  State  or- 
ganization and  government,  however  small  their 
number,  they  would  have  held  the  State,  and 
the  government  would  have  been  bound  to 
recognize  and  to  defend  them  as  such  with  all 
the  force  of  the  Union.  The  rebellion  would 
then  have  been  personal,  not  territorial.  But 
such  was  not  the  case.  The  State  organization, 
the  State  government,  the  whole  State  author- 
ity rebelled,  made  the  rebellion  territorial,  not 
personal,  and  left  the  Unionists,  very  respec- 
table persans  assuredly,  residing,  if  they  re- 
mained at  home,  in  rebel  territory,  traitors  in 
the  eye  of  their  respective  States,  and  shorn  of 
all  political  status  or  rights.  Their  political 
Matiis  was  simply  that  of  the  old  loyalists,  or 
adherents  of  the  British  crown  in  the  Ameri- 
can war  for  Independence,  and  it  was  as  absurd 
to  call  them  the  State,  as  it  would  have  been 
for  Great  Britain  to  have  called  the  old  Tories 
the  colonies. 

The  theory  on  which  the  government  at- 
tempted to  re-organize  the  disorganized  States 
rested  on  two  false  assumptions :  first,  that  the 


342  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIO. 

people  are  personally  sovereign;  and,  seconc^ 
that  all  tlie  power  of  the  Union  vests  in  the 
General  government.  The  first,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  the  principle  of  so-called  "  squatter  sov- 
ereignty,"  embodied  in  the  famous  Kansas- Ne- 
braska Bill,  which  gave  birth,  in  opposition,  to 
the  Republican  party  of  1856.  The  people  are 
sovereign  only  as  the  State,  and  the  State  is 
inseparable  from  the  domain.  The  Unionists 
without  the  State  government,  without  any 
State  organization,  could  not  hold  the  domain^ 
which,  when  the  State  organization  is  gone, 
escheats  to  the  United  States,  that  is  to  say, 
ceases  to  exist.  The  American  democracy  is 
teiTitorial,  not  personal. 

The  General  government,  in  time  of  war  or 
rebellion,  is  indeed  invested,  for  war  purposes, 
with  all  the  power  of  the  Union.  This  is  the 
war  power.  But,  though  apparently  unlimited,, 
the  war  power  is  yet  restricted  to  war  purposes, 
and  expires  by  natural  limitation  when  peace 
returns ;  and  peace  returns,  in  a  civil  war,  when 
the  rebels  have  thrown  down  their  arms  and 
submitted  to  the  national  authority,  and  with- 
out any  formal  declaration.  During  the  war,  or 
while  the  rebellion  lasts,  it  can  suspend  the 
civil  courts,  the  civil  laws,  the  State  constitu- 
tions, any  thing  necessary  to  the  success  of  the 


RECONSTRUCTION.  343 

war — and  of  the  necessity  the  military  author- 
ities are  the  judges ;  but  it  cannot  abolish,  ab- 
rogate, or  reconstitute  them.  On  the  return  of 
peace  they  revive  of  themselves  in  all  their 
vigor.  The  emancipation  proclamation  of  the 
President,  if  it  emancipated  th«  slaves  in  cer- 
tain States  and  parts  of  States,  and  if  those 
whom  it  emancipated  could  not  be  re-enslaved, 
did  not  anywhere  abolish  slavery,  or  change 
the  laws  authorizing  it;  and  if  the  Govern- 
ment should  be  sustained  by  Congress  or  by 
the  Supreme  Court  in  counting  the  disorgan- 
ized States  as  States  in  the  Union,  the  legal 
status  of  slavery  throughout  the  Union,  with 
the  exception  of  Maryland,  and  perhaps  Mis- 
souri, is  what  it  was  before  the  war.* 

The  Government  undoubtedly  supposed,  in 
the  reconstructions  it  attempted,  that  it  was  act- 
ing under  the  war  power ;  but  as  reconstruction 
can  never  be  necessary  for  war  purposes,  and  as 
it  is  in  its  very  nature  a  work  of  peace,  incapa- 
ble of  being  effected  by  military  force,  since  its 
validity  depends  entii-ely  on  its  being  the  free 
action  of  the  territorial  people  to  be  recon- 
structed, the  General  government  had  and 
could  have,  with  regard  to  it,  only  its  ordinary 

*  This  was  the  case  in  August,  1865.    It  may  be  quite  otherwise 
before  these  pages  see  the  light 


344  THE  AMERICAN  E.EPUBLIC. 

peace  powera.    Reconstruction  is  jure  pac?'^,  not 
jti/re  belli. 

Yet  such  illegal  organizations,  thougli  they 
are  neither  States  nor  State  governments,  and 
incapable  of  being  legalized  by  any  action  of 
the  Executive  or  of  Congress,  may,  neverthe- 
less, be  legalized  by  being  indorsed  or  acqui- 
esced in  by  the  territorial  people.  They  are 
wi'ong,  as  are  all  usurpations  ;  they  are  undem- 
ocratic, inasmuch  as  they  attempt  to  give  the 
minority  the  power  to  rule  the  majority  ;  they 
are  dangerous,  inasmuch  as  they  place  the  State 
in  the  hands  of  a  party  that  can  stand  only  .as 
supported  by  the  General  government,  and 
thus  destroy  the  proper  freedom  and  independ- 
ence of  the  State,  and  open  the  door  to  corrup- 
tion, tend  to  keep  alive  rancor  and  ill  feeling, 
and  to  retard  the  period  of  complete  pacifica- 
tion, which  might  be  effected  in  three  months 
as  well  as  in  three  years,  or  twenty  years ;  yet 
they  can  become  legal,  as  other  governments  il- 
legal in  their  origin  become  legal,  with  time 
and  popular  acquiescence.  The  right  way  is 
always  the  shortest  and  easiest;  but  when  a 
government  must  oftener  follow  than  lead  the 
public,  it  is  not  always  easy  to  hit  the  right 
way,  and  still  less  easy  to  take  it.  The  general 
instincts  of  the  people  are  right  as  to  the  end 


RECOXSTRUCTIOX.  345 

to  be  gained,  but  seldom  right  as  to  the  means 
of  gaining  it ;  and  politicians  of  the  Union  party, 
as  well  as  of  the  late  secession  party,  have  an  eye 
in  reconstructing,  to  the  future  political  control 
of  the  State  when  it  is  reconstructed. 

The  secessionists,  if  permitted  to  retain  their 
fi'anchise,  would,  even  if  they  accepted  aboli- 
tion, no  doubt  re-organize  their  respective  States 
on  the  basis  of  white  suffrage,  and  so  would  the 
Unionists,  i^  left  to  themselves.  There  is  no 
party  at  the  South  prepared  to  adopt  negro  suf- 
iS'age,  and  there  would  be  none  at  the  North  if 
the  negroes  constituted  any  considerable  por- 
tion of  the  population.  As  the  reconstruction 
of  a  State  cannot  be  done  under  the  war  power, 
the  General  government  can  no  more  enfran- 
chise than  it  can  disfranchise  any  portion 
of  the  territorial  people,  and  the  question  of 
negro  suffrage  must  be  left,  where  the  con- 
stitution leaves  it — to  the  States  severally,  each 
to  dispose  of  it  for  itself.  Negro  suffrage  will, 
no  doubt,  come  in  time,  as  soon  as  the  freedmen 
are  prepared  for  it,  and  the  danger  is  that  it 
will  be  attempted  too  soon. 

It  would  be  a  convenience  to  have  the  negro 
vote  in  the  reconstruction  of  the  States  disorgan- 
ized by  secession,  for  it  would  secure  their  re-con- 
•truction  with  anti-slavery  constitutions,  and  also 


346  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

make  sure  of  the  proposed  anti-slavery  amend- 
ment to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States ;. 
but  there  is  no  power  in  Congress  to  enfranchise- 
the  negroes  in  the  States  needing  reconstruction^ 
and,  once  assured  of  their  freedom,  the  freedmen 
would  care  little  for  the  Union,  of  which  they 
understand  nothing.  They  would  vote,  for  the 
most  part,  with  their  former  masters,  their  em 
ployers,  the  wealthier  and  more  intelligent 
classes,  whether  loyal  or  disloyal;  for,  as  a 
nde,  these  will  treat  them  with  greater  per* 
eonal  consideration  and  kindness  than  others 
The  dislike  of  the  negro,  and  hostility  to  ne- 
gro equality,  increase  as  you  descend  in  the- 
social  scale.  The  freedmen,  without  political 
instruction  or  experience,  who  have  had  no 
country,  no  domicile,  understand  nothing  of 
loyalty  or  of  disloyalty.  They  have  strong 
local  attachments,  but  they  can  have  no  patri- 
otism. If  they  adhered  to  the  Union  in  the 
rebellion,  fought  for  it,  bled  for  it,  it  was  not 
from  loyalty,  but  because  they  knew  that  their 
freedom  could  come  only  from  the  success  of 
the  Union  arms.  That  freedom  secured,  they 
have  no  longer  any  interest  in  the  Union,  and 
their  local  attachments,  personal  associations^ 
habits,  tastes,  likes  and  dislikes,  are  Southern,, 
not  Noi-thern.      In  any  contest  between  the 


RECONSTRUCTION.  347 

North  and  the  South,  they  would  take,  to  a 
man,  the  Southern  side.  After  the  taunts  of  the 
women,  the  captured  soldiers  of  the  Union 
found,  until  nearly  the  last  year  of  the  war^ 
nothing  harder  to  bear,  when  marched  as  prison- 
ers into  Richmond,  than  the  antics  and  hootings 
of  the  negroes.  Kegro  suffrage  on  the  score  of 
loyalty,  is  at  best  a  matter  of  indifference  to 
the  Union,  and  as  the  elective  franchise  is  not 
a  natural  right,  but  a  civil  trust,  the  friends 
of  the  negro  should,  for  the  present,  be  con- 
tented with  securing  him  simply  equal  rights 
of  person  and  property. 


148  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

POLITICAL    TENDENCIES. 

The  most  marked  political  tendency  of  tlie 
American  people  has  been,  since  1825,  to  inter- 
pret their  government  as  a  pure  and  simple 
democracy,  and  to  shift  it  from  a  territorial  to 
a  purely  popular  basis,  or  from  the  people  as 
the  state,  inseparably  united  to  the  national 
territory  or  domain,  to  the  people  as  simply 
population,  either  as  individuals  or  as  the  race. 
Their  tendency  has  unconsciously,  therefore, 
been  to  change  their  constitution  from  a  repub- 
lican to  a  despotic,  or  from  a  civilized  to  a  bar- 
baric constitution. 

The  American  constitution  is  democratic,  in 
the  sense  that  the  people  are  sovereign ;  that  all 
laws  and  public  acts  run  in  their  name ;  that 
the  rulers  are  elected  by  them,  and  are  respon- 
sible to  them ;  but  they  are  the  people  terri- 
torially constituted  and  fixed  to  the  soil,  consti- 
•tuting  what  Mr.  Disraeli,  with  more  propriet}^' 
perhaps  than  he  thinks,  calls  a  "territorial 
democracy."  To  this  territorial  democracy,  the 
real  American  democracy,  stand  opposed  two 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES  34^ 

other  democracies — ^the  one  persc-nal  and  tlie 
other  humanitarian — each  alike  hostile  to  civil- 
ization, and  tending  to  destroy  the  state,  and 
capably  of  sustaining  government  only  on  prin- 
ciples common  to  all  despotisms. 

In  every  man  there  is  a  natural  craving  for 
personal  freedom  and  unrestrained  action — a 
strong  desire  to  be  himself,  not  another — to  be 
his  own  master,  to  go  when  and  where 
he  pleases,  to  do  what  he  chooses,  to  take 
what  he  wants,  wherever  he  can  find  it,  and  if> 
keep  what  he  takes.  It  is  strong  in  all 
nomadic  tribes,-  who  are  at  once  pastoral  and 
predatory,  and  is  seldom  weak  in  our  bold 
frontier-men,  too  often  real  "  border  ruffians." 
It  takes  different  forms  in  different  stages  of 
social  development,  but  it  everywhere  identi- 
fies liberty  with  power.  Restricted  in  its  en- 
joyment to  one  man,  it  makes  him  chief,  chief 
of  the  family,  the  tribe,  or  the  nation ;  ex- 
tended in  its  enjoyment  to  the  few,  it  founds 
an  aristocracy,  creates  a  nobility — for  nobleman 
meant  originally  only  freeman,  as  it  does  still 
with  the  Magyars ;  extended  to  the  many,  it 
founds  personal  democracy,  a  simple  associa- 
tion of  individuals,  in  which  all  are  equally  free 
and  independent,  and  no  restraint  is  imposed 
on  any  one's  action,  will,  or  inclination,  without 


360  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC, 

tis  own  consent,  express  or  constructive.  This 
is  the  so-called  Jeffersonian  democracy,  in  which 
government  has  no  powers  but  such  as  it  de- 
rives from  the  consent  of  the  governed,  and  is 
personal  democracy  or  pure  individualism — 
philosophically  considered,  pure  egoism,  which 
«ays,  "  I  am  Grod."  Under  this  sort  of  democ- 
racy, based  on  popular,  or  rather  individual 
sovereignty,  expressed  by  politicians  when  they 
call  the  electoral  people,  half  seriously,  half 
Toockingly,  "  the  sovereigns,"  there  obviously 
can  be  no  state,  no  social  rights  or  civil  au- 
thoiity ;  there  can  be  only  a  voluntary  assoda- 
tioUj  league,  alliance,  or  confederation,  in  which 
individuals  may  freely  act  together  as  long  as 
they  find  it  pleasant,  convenient,  or  useful, 
but  from  which  they  may  separate  or  secede 
whenever  they  find  it  for  their  interest  or 
their  pleasure  to  do  so.  State  sovereignty  and 
secession  are  based  on  the  same  democratic 
principle  applied  to  the  several  States  of  the 
Union  instead  of  individuals. 

The  tendency  to  this  sort  of  democracy  has 
been  strong  in  large  sections  of  the  American 
people  from  the  first,  and  has  been  greatly 
strengthened  by  the  general  acceptance  of  the 
theory  that  government  originates  in  compact. 
The  full  realization  of  this  tendency,  which,  hap 


.-POLITICAL  TEXDEXCTES.  351 

j)ily,  is  impracticable  save  in  theory,  would  be 
to  render  every  man  independent  alike  of  every 
other  man  and  of  society,  with  full  right  and 
power  to  make  his  own  will  prevail.  This 
tendency  was  strongest  in  the  slaveholding 
States,  and  especially,  in  those  States,  in  the 
slaveholding  class,  the  American  imitation  of 
the  feudal  nobility  of  mediaeval  Europe  ;  and  on 
this  side  the  war  just  ended  was,  in  its  most 
general  expression,  a  war  in  defence  of  personal 
democracy,  or  the  sovereignty  of  the  people  in- 
dividually, against  the  humanitarian  democracy, 
represented  by  the  abolitionists,  and  the  terri- 
torial democracy,  represented  by  the  Govern- 
ment. This  personal  democracy  has  been 
signally  defeated  in  the  defeat  of  the  late  con- 
federacy, and  can  hardly  again  become  strong 
enough  to  be  dangerous. 

But  the  humanitarian  democracy,  which 
scorns  all  geographical  lines,  effaces  all  in  indi- 
vidualities, and  professes  to  plant  itself  on  hu- 
manity alone,  has  acquired  by  the  war  new 
strength,  and  is  not  without  menace  to  our  fu- 
ture. The  solidarity  of  the  race,  which  is  the  con- 
dition of  all  human  life,  founds,  as  we  have  seen, 
society,  and  creates  what  are  called  social  rights, 
the  rights  alike  of  society  in  regard  to  individ 
uals,  and  of  individuals  in  regard  to  society 


852  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

Territorial  divisions  or  circumscriptions  found 
particular  societies,  states,  or  nations ;  yet  a» 
the  race  is  one,  and  all  its  members  live  by 
communion  with  God  through  it  and  by  com- 
munion one  with  another,  these  particular  states 
or  nations  are  never  absolutely  independent  of 
each  other,  but  bound  together  by  the  solidar- 
ity of  the  race,  so  that  there  is  a  real  solidarity 
of  nations  as  well  as  of  individuals — the  truth 
underlying  Kossuth's  famous  declaration  of 
"  the  solidarity  of  peoples." 

The  solidarity  of  nations  is  the  basis  of  in- 
ternational law,  binding  on  every  particular 
nation,  and  which  every  civilized  nation  recog- 
nizes, and  enforces  on  its  own  subjects  or  citi- 
zens, through  its  own  courts,  as  an  integral 
part  of  its  own  municipal  or  national  law. 
The  personal  or  individual  right  is  therefore 
restricted  by  the  rights  of  society,  and  the 
rights  of  the  particular  society  or  nation  are 
limited  by  international  law,  or  the  rights  of 
universal  society — the  truth  the  ex-governor 
of  Hungary  overlooked.  The  grand  error  of 
Gentilism  was  in  denying  the  unity  and  there- 
fore the  solidarity  of  the  race,  involved  in  its 
denial  or  misconception  of  the  unity  of  God. 
It  therefore  was  never  able  to  assign  any  solid 
basis  to  international  law,  and  gave  it  only  a 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES.  363 

conventional  or  customary  authority,  thus  leav- 
ing the  jus  gentium,  vrhich  it  recognized  in- 
deed, without  any  real  foundation  in  the  con- 
stitution of  things,  or  authority  in  the  real 
world.  Its  real  basis  is  in  the  solidarity  of  the 
race,  which  has  its  basis  in  the  unity  of  God, 
not  the  dead  or  abstract  unity  asserted  by  the 
old  Eleatics,  the  Neo-Platonists,  or  the  modern 
Unitarians,  but  the  living  unity  consisting  in 
the  threefold  relation  in  the  Divine  Essence,  of 
Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  as  asserted  by 
Christian  revelation,  and  believed,  more  or  less 
intelligently,  by  all  Christendom. 

The  tendency  in  the  Southern  States  has 
been  to  overlook  the  social  basis  of  the  state, 
or  the  rights  of  society  founded  on  the  solid- 
arity of  the  race,  and  to  make  all  rights  and 
powers  personal,  or  individual;  and  as  only 
the  white  race  has  been  able  to  assert  and 
maintain  its  personal  freedom,  only  men  of 
that  race  are  held  to  have  the  right  to  be 
free.  Hence  the  people  of  those  States  felt  no 
scruple  in  holding  the  black  or  colored  race  as 
slaves.  Liberty,  said  they,  is  the  right  only  of 
those  who  have  the  ability  to  assert  and  main 
tain  it.  Let  the  negro  prove  that  he  has  this 
ability  by  asserting  and  maintaining  his  free- 
dom, and  he  will  prove  his  right  to  be  free, 

S3 


354  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLTC. 

and  tliat  it  is  a  gross  outrage,  a  manifest  in- 
justice, to  enslave  him;  but,  till  then,  let  him 
be  my  servant,  which  is  best  for  him  and  for 
me.  Why  ask  me  to  free  him  ?  I  shall  by 
doing  so  only  change  the  form  of  his  sei-vitude. 
Why  appeal  to  7)ie  f  Am  I  my  brother's  keep- 
•er?  Nay,  is  he  my  brother?  Is  this  negro, 
more  like  an  ape  or  a  baboon  than  a  human 
l)eing,  of  the  same  race  with  myself?  I  be- 
lieve it  not.  But  in  some  instances,  at  least, 
my  dear  slaveholder,  your  slave  is  literally  your 
brother,  and  sometimes  even  your  son,  born  of 
your  own  daughter.  The  tendency  of  the 
Southern  democrat  was  to  deny  the  unity  of 
the  race,  as  well  as  all  obligations  of  society  to 
protect  the  weak  and  helpless,  and  therefore  all 
true  civil  society. 

At  the  North  there  has  been,  and  is  even 
yet,  an  opposite  tendency — a  tendency  to  exag- 
gerate the  social  element,  to  overlook  the  terri- 
torial basis  of  the  state,  and  to  disregard 
the  rights  of  individuals.  This  tendency  has 
been  and  is  strong  in  the  people  called  aboli- 
tionists. The  American  abolitionist  is  so  en- 
grossed with  the  unity  that  he  loses  the  solid- 
arity of  the  race,  which  supposes  unity  of 
race  and  multiplicity  of  individuals ;  and  fails 
to  see  any  thing  legitimate  and  authoritative  iu 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES.  355 

• 

geographical  divisioiis  or  territorial  circumscrip- 
tions. Back  of  these,  back  of  individuals,  he  sees 
humanity,  superior  to  individuals,  superior  to 
states,  governments,  and  laws,  and  holds  that  he 
may  trample  on  them  all  or  give  them  to  the 
winds  at  the  call  of  humanity  or  "the  higher  law." 
The  principle  on  which  he  acts  is  as  indefensi- 
ble as  the  personal  or  egoistical  democracy  of 
the  slaveholders  and  their  sympathizers.  Were 
his  socialistic  tendency  to  become  exclusive  and 
realized,  it  would  found  in  the  name  of  human- 
ity a  complete  social  despotism,  which,  proving 
impracticable  from  its  very  generality,  would 
break  up  in  anarchy,  in  which  might  makes 
right,  as  in  the  slaveholder's  democracy. 

The  abolitionists,  in  supporting  themselves  on 
humanity  in  its  generality,  regardless  of  individ- 
ual and  territorial  rights,  can  recognize  no  state, 
no  civil  authority,  and  therefore  are  as  much 
out  of  the  order  of  civilization,  and  as  much  in 
that  of  barbarism,  as  is  the  slaveholder  him- 
self. Wendell  Phillips  is  as  far  removed  from 
true  Christian  civilization  as  was  Jolm  C.  Cal- 
houn, and  William  Lloyd  Garrison  is  as  much 
of  a  barbarian  and  despot  in  principle  and 
tendency  as  Jefferson  Davis.  Hence  the  great 
body  of  the  people  in  the  non-slaveholding 
States,  wedded  to  American  democracy  as  they 


356  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

• 

were  and  are,  could  never,  as  much  as  they  de- 
tested slavery,  be  induced  to  make  common 
cause  with  the  abolitionists,  and  their  apparent 
union  in  the  late  civil  war  was  accidental,  sim- 
ply owing  to  the  fact  that  for  the  time  the 
social  democracy  and  the  territorial  coincided, 
or  had  the  same  enemy.  The  great  body  of  the 
loyal  people  instinctively  felt  that  pure  social- 
ism is  as  incompatible  with  American  democracy 
as  pure  individualism ;  •  and  the  abolitionists 
are  well  aware  that  slavery  has  been  abolished, 
not  for  humanitarian  or  socialistic  reasons,  but 
really  for  reasons  of  state,  in  order  to  save  the 
territorial  democracy.  The  territorial  democ- 
racy would  not  unite  to  eliminate  even  so  bar- 
baric an  element  as  slavery,  till  the  rebellion 
gave  them  the  constitutional  right  to  abolish  it ; 
and  even  then  so  scrupulous  were  they,  that 
thev  demanded  a  constitutional  amendment,  so 
as  to  be  able  to  make  clean  work  of  it,  without 
any  blow  to  individual  or  State  rights. 

The  abolitionists  were  right  in  opposing 
slavery,  but  not  in  demanding  its  abolition  on 
humanitarian  or  socialistic  grounds.  Slavery 
is  really  a  barbaric  element,  and  is  in  direct 
antagonism  to  Ameiican  civilization.  The  whole 
force  of  the  national  life  opposes  it,  and  must 
finally  eliminate  it,  or  become  itself  extinct; 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES.  357 

and  it  is  no  mean  proof  of  their  utter  want  of 
sympathy  with  all  the  living  forces  of  modern 
civilization,  that  the  leading  men  of  the  South 
and  their  prominent  friends  at  the  North  really 
persuaded  themselves  that  with  cotton,  rice, 
and  tobacco,  they  could  effectually  resist  the 
anti-slavery  movement,  and  perpetuate  their 
barbaric  democracy.  They  studied  the  classics, 
they  admired  Greece  and  Rome,  and  imagined 
that  those  nations  became  great  by  slavery, 
instead  of  being  great  even  in  spite  of  slavery. 
They  failed  to  take  into  the  account  the  fact 
that  when  Greece  and  Rome  were  in  the  zenith 
of  their  glory,  all  contemporary  nations  were 
also  slaveholding  nations,  and  that  if  they 
were  the  greatest  and  most  highly  civilized 
nations  of  their  times,  they  were  not  fitted  to 
be  the  greatest  and  most  highly  civilized  na- 
tions of  all  times.  They  failed  also  to  perceive 
that,  if  the  Grseco-Roman  republic  did  not 
include  the  whole  territorial  people  in  the 
political  people,  it  yet  recognized  both  the 
social  and  the  territorial  foundation ,  of  the 
state,  and  never  attempted  to  rest  it  on  pure 
individualism;  they  forgot,  too,  that  Greece 
and  Rome  both  fell,  and  fell  precisely  through 
internal  weakness  caused  by  the  barbarism 
within,  not  through  the  force  of  the  barbarism 


868  THE  AMEBICAN"  REPCBLIC. 

beyond  their  frontierB.  The  world  has  changed 
since  the  time  when  ten  thousand  of  his  slave* 
were  sacrificed  as  a  religious  offering  to  the 
manes  of  a  single  Koman  master.  The  infusion 
of  the  Christian  dogma  of  the  unity  and  solid- 
arity of  the  race  into  the  belief,  the  life,  the  laws, 
the  jurisprudence  of  all  civilized  nations,  has 
doomed  slavery  and  every  species  of  barbarism ; 
but  this  our  slaveholding  countrymen  saw  not. 
It  rarely  happens  that  in  any  controversy,  in- 
dividual or  national,  the  real  issue  is  distinctly 
presented,  or  the  precise  question  in  debate  is 
clearly  and  distinctly  understood  by  either 
party.  Slavery  was  only  incidentally  involved 
in  the  late  war.  The  war  was  occasioned  by 
the  collision  of  two  extreme  parties;  but  it 
was  itself  a  war  between  civilization  and  bar- 
barism, primarily  between  the  territorial  democ- 
racy and  the  personal  democracy,  and  in  reality, 
on  the  part  of  the  nation,  as  much  a  war 
against  the  socialism  of  the  abolitionist  as 
against  the  individualism  of  the  slaveholder. 
Yet  the  victory,  though  complete  over  the  for- 
mer,  is  only  half  won  over  the  latter,  for  it  has 
left  the  humanitarian  democracy  standing,  and 
perhaps  for  the  moment  stronger  than  ever* 
The  socialistic  democracy  was  enlisted  by  the 
territorial,  not  to  strengthen  the  government  at 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES.  3.5& 

home,  as  it  imagines,  for  that  it  did  not  do, 
and  could  not  do,  since  the  national  instinct 
was  even  more  opposed  to  it  than  to  the  per- 
sonal democracy;  but  under  its  anti-slaveiy 
aspect,  to  soften  the  hostility  of  foreign  powers, 
and  ward  off  foreign  intervention,  which  was 
seriously  threatened.  The  populations  of 
Europe,  especially  of  France  and  England, 
were  decidedly  anti-slavery,  and  if  the  war 
here  appeared  to  them  a  war,  not  solely  for  the 
unity  of  the  nation  and  the  integrity  of  its 
domain,  as  it  really  was,  in  which  they 
took  and  could  take  no  interest,  but  a  war  for 
the  abolition  of  slavery,  their  governments 
would  not  venture  to  intervene.  This  was  the 
only  consideration  that  weighed  with  Mr.  Lin- 
coln, as  he  himself  assured  the  author,  and 
induced  him  to  issue  his  Emancipation  Pro- 
clamation; and  Europe  rejoices  in  our  victory 
over  the  rebellion  only  so  far  as  it  has  liberated 
the  slaves,  and  honors  the  late  President  only 
as  their  supposed  liberator,  not  as  the  preserver 
of  the  unity  and  integrity  of  the  nation.  This 
is  natural  enough  abroad,  and  proves  the  wisdom 
of  the  anti-slavery  policy  of  the  government, 
which  had  become  absolutely  necessary  to  save 
the  Republic  long  before  it  was  adopted ;  yet  it 
is  not  as  the  emancipator  of  some  two  or  three 


860  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

millions  of  slaves  that  the  American  patriot 
cheiishes  the  memory  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  but, 
aided  by  the  loyal  people,  generals  of  rare 
merit,  and  troops  of  unsurpassed  bravery  and 
endurance,  as  the  saviour  of  the  Amencan  state, 
and  the  protector  of  modem  civilization.  His 
anti-slavery  policy  sei'ved  this  end,  and  therefore 
was  wise,  but  he  adopted  it  with  the  greatest 
possible  reluctance. 

There  were  greater  issues  in  the  late  was 
than  negro  slavery  or  negro  freedom.  That 
was. only  an  incidental  issue,  as  the  really  great 
men  of  the  Confederacy  felt,  who  to  save 
their  cause  were  willinor  themselves  at  last  to 
free  and  arm  their  own  negroes,  and  perhaps 
were  willing  to  do  it  even  at  first.  This  fact 
alone  proves  that  they  had,  or  believed  the}'  had, 
a  far  more  important  cause  than  the  preserva- 
tion of  negro  slavery.  They  fought  for  per- 
sonal democracy,  under  the  form  of  State 
sovereignty,  against  social  democracy ;  for  per- 
sonal freedom  and  independence  against  social 
or  humanitarian  despotism;  and  so  far  their 
cause  was  as  good  as  that  against  which  they 
took  up  arms ;  and  if  they  had  or  could  have 
fought  against  that,  without  fighting  at  the 
same  time  against  the  territorial,  the  real 
American,  the  only  civilized  democracy,  they 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES.  361 

would  have  succeeded.  It  is  not  socialism  nor 
Abolitionism  that  has  won ;  nor  is  it  the  North 
that  has  conquered.  The  Union  itself  has  won 
no  victories  over  the  South,  and  it  is  both  his- 
torically and  legally  false  to  say  that  the  South 
has  been  subjugated.  The  Union  has  pre- 
served itself  and  American  civilization,  alike 
for  North  and  South,  East  and  "West.  The 
armies  that  so  often  met  in  the  shock  of  battle 
were  not  drawn  up  respectively  by  the  North 
and  the  South,  but  by  two  rival  democracies, 
to  decide  which  of  the  two  should  rule  the 
future.  They  were  the  armies  of  two  mutually 
antagonistic  systems,  and  neither  army  was 
clearly  and  distinctly  conscious  of  the  cause 
for  which  it  was  shedding  its  blood ;  each 
obeyed  instinctively  a  power  stronger  than  it- 
self, and  which  at  best  it  but  dimly  discerned 
On  both  aides  the  cause  was  broader  and 
deeper  than  negro  slavery,  and  neither  the  pro- 
slavery  men  nor  the  abolitionists  have  won. 
The  territorial  democracy  alone  has  won,  and 
won  what  will  prove  to  be  a  final  victory  ovei* 
the  purely  personal  democracy,  which  had  its 
ohief  seat  in  the  Southern  States,  though  by  no 
means  coufined  to  them.  The  danger  to  Amer- 
ican democracy  from  that  quarter  is  forever 
removed,  and  democracy  a  la  Rousseau  has 


362  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

received  a  terrible  defeat  throngliout  the  worlds 
though  as  yet  it  is  far  from  being  aware  of  it. 
But  in  this  world  victories  are  never  com- 
plete. The  socialistic  democracy  claims  the 
victory  which  has  been  really  won  by  the  ter- 
ritorial democracy,  as  if  it  had  been  socialism, 
not  patriotism,  that  fired  the  hearts  and  nerved 
the  arms  of  the  brave  men  led  by  McClellan^ 
Grant,  and  Sherman.  The  humanitarians  are 
more  dangerous  in  principle  than  the  ego- 
ists, for  they  have  the  appearance  of  build- 
ing on  a  broader  and  deeper  foundation,  of  being 
more  Christian,  more  philosophic,  more  gener- 
ous and  philanthropic ;  but  Satan  is  never  more 
successful  than  under  the  guise  of  an  angel  of 
light.  His  favorite  guise  in  modern  times  is 
that  of  philanthropy.  He  is  a  genuine  hu- 
manitarian, and  aims  to  persuade  the  world 
that  humanitarianism  is  Christianity,  and  that 
man  is  God ;  that  the  soft  and  charming  senti- 
ment of  philanthropy  is  real  Christian  charity ; 
and  he  dupes  both  individuals  and  nations,  and 
makes  them  do  his  work,  when  they  believe 
they  are  earnestly  and  most  successfully  doing 
the  work  of  God.  Your  leadins:  abolitionists 
ai*e  as  much  affected  by  satanophany  as  your 
leading  confederates,  nor  are  they  one  whit 
more  philosophical  or  less  sophistical.     The  one 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES.  363; 

.OSes  the  race,  the  other  the  individual,  and 
neither  has  learned  to  apply  practically  that 
fundamental  truth  that  there  is  never  the  gen- 
eral without  the  particular,  nor  the  particular 
without  the  general,  the  race  without  individuals, 
nor  individuals  without  the  race.  The  whole  race 
was  in  Adam,  and  fell  in  him,  as  we  are  taught 
by  the  doctrine  of  original  sin,  or  the  sin  of  the 
race,  and  Adam  was  an  individual,  as  we  are 
taught  in  the  fact  that  original  sin  was  in  him 
actual  or  personal  sin. 

The  humanitarian  is  carried  away  by  a  vague 
generality,  and  loses  men  in  humanity,  sacri- 
fices the  rights  of  men  in  a  vain  endeavor  t» 
secure  the  rights  of  man,  as  your  Calvinist  or 
his  brother  Jansenist  sacrifices  the  rights  of 
nature  in  order  to  secure  the  freedom  of  grace. 
Yesterday  he  agitated  for  the  abolition  of 
slavery,  to-day  he  agitates  for  negro  suffrage, 
negro  equality,  and  announces  that  when,  he 
has  secured  that  he  will  agitate  for  female  suf- 
frage and  the  equality  of  the  sexes,  forgetting 
or  ignorant  that  the  relation  of  equality  subsists 
only  between  individuals  of  the  same  sex; 
that  God  made  the  man  the  head  of  the 
woman,  and  the  woman  for  the  man,  nfit  the 
man  for  the  woman.  Having  obliterated  all 
distinction   of   sex   in    politics,  in    social,    in- 


204  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

dustrial,  and  domestic  arrangement*,  lie  must 
go  farther,  and  agitate  for  equality  of  property. 
But  since  property,  if  recognized  at  all,  will  be 
unequally  acquired  and  distributed,  he  must  go 
farther  still,  and  agitate  for  the  total  abolition 
of  property,  as  an  injustice,  a  grievous  wrong, 
a  theft,  with  M.  Proudhon,  or  the  English- 
man Godwin.  It  is  unjust  that  one  should 
have  what  another  wants,  or  even  more  than 
another.  What  right  have  you  to  ride  in  your 
coach  or  astride  your  spirited  barb  while  I  am 
forced  to  truds^e  on  foot  ?  Nor  can  our  hu- 
inanitarian  stop  there.  Individuals  are,  and  as 
long  as  there  are  ilxiividuals  will  be,  unequal : 
€ome  are  handsomer  and  some  are  uglier,  some 
wiser  or  sillier,  more  or  less  gifted,  stronger  or 
weaker,  taller  or  shorter,  stouter  or  thinner 
than  others,  and  therefore  some  have  natural 
advantages  which  others  have  not.  There  is 
inequality,  therefore  injustice,  which  can  be 
remedied  only  by  the  abolition  of  all  individu- 
alities, and  the  reduction  of  all  individuals  to 
the  race,  or  humanity,  man  in  general.  He  can 
find  no  limit  to  his  agitation  this  side  of  vague 
generality,  which  is  no  reality,  but  a  pure  nul- 
lity, :^r  he  respects  no  territorial  or  individual 
circumscriptions,  and  must  regard  creation  itself 
as  a  blunder.    This  is  not  fancy,  for  he  has 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES.  365 

gone  very  nearly  as  far  as  it  is  here  shown,  if 
logical,  he  must  go. 

The  danger  now  is  that  the  Union  victory 
will,  at  home  and  abroad,  be  interpreted  as  a 
victory  won  in  the  interest  of  social  or  humani- 
tarian democracy.  It  was  because  they  regard- 
ed the  war  waged  on  the  side  of  the  Union 
as  waged  in  the  interest  of  this  terrible  democ- 
racy, that  our  bishops  and  clergy  sympathized 
so  little  with  the  Government  in  prosecuting 
it;  not,  as  some  imagined,  because  they  were 
disloyal,  hostile  to  American  or  territorial 
democracy,  or  not  heartily  in  favor  of  freedom 
for  all  men,  whatever  their  race  or  complexion. 
They  had  no  wish  to  see  slavery  prolonged,  the 
evils  of  which  they,  better  than  any  other  class 
of  men,  knew,  and  more  deeply  deplored ;  none 
would  have  regretted  more  than  they  to  have 
seen  the  Union  broken  up ;  but  they  held  the 
socialistic  or  humanitarian  democracy  repre- 
sented by  Northern  abolitionists  as  hostile  alike 
to  the  Church  and  to  civilization.  For  the  same 
reason  that  they  were  "backward  or  reserved  in 
their  sympathy,  all  the  humanitarian  sects  at 
home  and  abroad  were  forward  and  even  osten- 
tatious in  theirs.  The  Catholics  feared  the 
war  might  result  in  encouraging  La  JRepublique 
democratique  et  sociale;  the  humanitarian  sects 


S66  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

trusted  tliat  it  would.  K  the  victory  of  the 
Union  should  turn  out  to  be  a  victory  for  the 
humanitarian  democracy,  the  civilized  world 
will  have  no  reason  to  applaud  it. 

That  there  is  some  danger  that  for  a  time 
the  victory  will  be  taken  as  a  victory  for  hu- 
manitaiianism  or  socialism,  it  would  be  idle  to 
deny.  It  is  so  taken  now,  and  the  humanitari- 
an party  throughout  the  world  are  in  ecstasies 
over  it.  The  party  claim  it.  The  European 
Socialists  and  Red  E-epublicans  applaud  it,  and 
the  Mazzinis  and  th.e  Garibaldis  inflict  on  us  the 
deep  humiliation  of  their  congratulations.  A 
<^use  that  can  be  approved  by  the  revolution- 
ary leaders  of  European  Liberals  must  be 
strangely  misunderstood,  or  have  in  it  some 
infamous  element.  It  is  no  compliment  to  a 
nation  to  receive  the  congratulations  of  men 
who  assert  not  only  people-king,  but  people- 
God  ;  and  those  Americans  who  are  delighted 
with  them  are  worse  enemies  to  the  American 
democracy  than  ever  were  Jefferson  Davis  and 
his  fellow  conspirators,  and  more  contemptible, 
as  the  swindler  is  more  contemptible  than  the 
highwayman. ' 

But  it  is  probable  the  humanitarians  have 
reckoned  without  their  host.  Not  they  are  the 
real   victors.     When  the  smoke  of  battle  has 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES.  367 

X'leared  away,  tlie  victory,  it  will  be  seen,  has 
been  won  by  the  Republic,  and*  that  that  alone 
has  trimuphed.  The  abolitionists,  in  so  far  as 
they  asserted  the  unity  of  the  race  and  opposed 
slavery  as  a  denial  of  that  unity,  have  also 
won ;  but  in  so  far  as  they  denied  the  reality 
or  authority  of  territorial  and  individual  cir- 
cumscriptions^ followed  a  purely  socialistic  tend- 
ency, and  sought  to  dissolve  patriotism  into  a 
watery  sentimentality  called  philanthropy,  have 
in  reality  been  crusliingly  defeated,  as  they  will 
find  when  the  late  insurrectionary  States  are 
fully  reconstructed.  The  Southern  or  egoistical 
democrats,  so  far  as  they  denied  the  unity  and 
solidarity  of  the  race,  the  rights  of  society  over 
individuals,  and  the  equal  rights  of  each  and 
every  individual  in  face  of  the  state,  or  the 
obligations  of  society  to  protect  the  weak  and 
help  the  helpless,  have  been  also  defeated  ;  but 
so  far  as  they  asserted  personal  or  individual 
rights  which  society  neither  gives  nor  can  take 
away,  and  so  far  as  they  asserted,  not  State  sov- 
ereignty, but  State  rights,  held  independently 
of  the  General  government,  and  which  limit  its 
authority  and  sphere  of  action,  they  share  in 
the  victory,  as  the  future  will  prove. 

European  Jacobins,  revolutionists,  conspiring 
openly  or  secretly  against  all  legitimate  author 


368  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

ity,  whether  in  Church  or  State,  have  no  lot  or 
part  in  the  victory  of  the  American  people : 
not  for  them  nor  for  men  with  their  nefarious  de- 
signs or  mad  dreams,  have  our  brave  soldiers 
fought,  suffered,  and  bled  for  four  years  of  the 
most  terrible  war  in  modern  times,  and  against 
troops  as  brave  and  as  well  led  as  themselves ; 
hot  for  them  has  the  country  sacrificed  a  million 
of  lives,  and  contracted  a  debt  of  four  thousand 
millions  of  dollars,  besides  the  waste  and  destruc- 
tion that  it  will  take  years  of  peaceful  industry 
to  repair.  They  and  their  barbaric  democracy 
have  been  defeated,  and  civilization  has  won  its 
most  brilliant  victory  in  all  history.  The 
American  democracy  has  crushed,  actually  or 
potentially,  every  species  of  barbarism  in  the 
New  World,  asserted  victoriously  the  state,  and 
placed  the  government  definitively  on  the  side 
of  legitimate  authority,  and  made  its  natural  as- 
sociation henceforth  with  all  civilized  govern- 
ments— not  with  the  revolutionary  movements 
to  overthrow  them.  The  American  people  will 
always  be  progressive  as  well-  as  conservative ; 
but  they  have  learned  a  lesson,  which  they 
much  needed,  against  false  democracy:  civil 
war  has  taught  them  that  "the  sacred  right 
of  insurrection"  is  as  much  out  of  place  in  a 
democratic  state  as  in  an  aiistocratic  or  a  mon- 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES.  369 

arcliical  state ;  and  that  the  government  should 
always  be  clothed  with  ample  authority  to  ar- 
rest and  punish  whoever  plots  its  destruction. 
They  must  never  be  delighted  again  to  have 
their  government  send  a  national  ship  to  bring 
hither  a  noted  traitor  to  his  own  sovereign  as 
the  nation's  guest.  The  people  of  the  Northern 
States  are  hardly  less  responsible  for  the  late 
rebellion  than  the  people  of  the  Southern  States. 
Their  press  had  taught  them  to  call  every  gov- 
ernment a  tyranny  that  refused  to  remain  quiet 
while  the  traitor  was  cutting  its  throat  or  as- 
sassinating the  nation,  and  they  had  nothing 
but  mad  denunciations  of  the  Papal,  the  Aus- 
trian, and  the  Neapolitan  governments  for  their 
severity  against  conspirators  and  traitors.  But 
theii"  own  government  has  found  it  necessary 
for  the  public  safety  to  be  equally  arbitrary, 
prompt,  and  severe,  and  tbey  will  most  likely  re- 
quire it  hereafter  to  co-operate  with  the  govern- 
ments of  the  Old  World  in  advancing  civiliza- 
tion, instead  of  lending  all  its  moral  support,  as 
heretofore,  to  the  Jacobins,  revolutionists,  so- 
cialists, and  humanitarians,  to  bring  back  the 
reign  of  barbarism. 

The  tendency  to  individualism  haS  been 
sufficiently  checked  by  the  failure  of  the  re- 
bellion, and  no  danger  from  the  disintegrating 

26 


370  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

element,  either  in  the  particular  State  or  in 
the  United  States,  is  henceforth  to  be  appre- 
hended. But  the  tendency  in  the  opposite  di- 
rection may  give  the  American  state  some 
trouble.  The  tendency  now  is,  as  to  the  Union, 
consolidation,  and  as  to  the  particular  state,  hu- 
manitarianism,  socialism,  or  centralized  democ- 
racy. Yet  this  tendency,  though  it  may  do 
much  mischief,  will  hardly  become  exclusive. 
The  States  that  seceded,  when  restored,  will  al- 
ways, even  in  abandoning  State  sovereignty, 
resist  it,  and  still  assert  State  rights.  When 
these  States  are  restored  to  their  normal  posi- 
tion, they  will  always  be  able  to  protect  them- 
selves against  any  encroachments  on  their  spe- 
cial rights  by  the  General  government.  The  con- 
stitution, in  the  distribution  of  the  powers  of 
government,  provides  the  States  severally  with 
ample  means  to  protect  their  individuality 
against  the  centralizing  tendency  of  the  Gen- 
eral government,  however  strong  it  may  be. 

The  war  has,  no  doubt,  had  a  tendency  to 
strengthen  the  General  government,  and  to  cause 
the  people,  to  a  great  extent,  to  look  upon  it  as 
the  supreme  and  exclusive  national  government, 
and  to  regard  the  several  State  governments  aa 
subordinate  instead  of  co-ordinate  governments. 
It  is  not  improbable  that  the  Executive,  since 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES  371 

the  outbreak  of  the  rebellion,  has  proceeded 
throughout  on  that  supposition,  and  hence  his 
extraordinary  assumptions  of  power ;  but  when 
once  peace  is  fully  re-established,  and  the  States 
have  all  resumed  their  normal  position  in  the 
Union,  every  State  will  be  f6und  prompt  enough 
to  resist  any  attempt  to  encroach  on  its  con- 
stitutional rights.  Its  instinct  of  self  preserva^ 
tion  will  lead  it  to  resist,  and  it  will  be  pro- 
tected by  both  its  own  judiciary  and  that  of 
the  United  States. 

The  danger  that  the  General  government 
will  usurp  the  rights  of  the  States  is  far 
less  than  the  danger  that  the  Executive  will 
usurp  all  the  powers  of  Congress  and  the  ju- 
diciary. Congress,  during  the  rebellion,  clothed 
the  President,  as  far  as  it  could,  with  dic- 
tatorial powers,  and  these  powers  the  Execu- 
tive continues  to  exercise  even  after  the  re- 
bellion is  suppressed.  They  were  given  and 
held  under  the  rights  of  war,  and  for  war  pur- 
poses only,  and  expired  by  natural  limitation 
when  the  war  ceased;  but  the  Executive  for- 
gets this,  and,  instead  of  calling  Congress  to- 
gether and  submitting  the  work  of  reconstruc- 
tion of  the  States  that  seceded  to  its  wisdom 
and  authority,  undertakes  to  reconstruct  them 
himself,  as  if  he  were  an  absolute  sovereign ; 


372  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

and  the  people  seem  to  like  it.  He  might  and 
should,  as  commander-in-chief  of  the  anny  and 
navy,  govern  them  as  military  departments, 
by  his  lieutenants,  till  Congress  could  either 
create  provisional  civil  governments  for  them 
or  recognize  them  as  self-governing  States  in 
the  Union ;  but  he  has  no  right,  under  the  con- 
stitution nor  under  the  war  power,  to  appoint 
civil  goveraors,  permanent  or  provisional ;  and 
every  act  he  has  done  in  regard  to  reconstruc- 
tion is  sheer  usurpation,  and  done  without  au- 
thority and  without  the  slightest  plea  of  neces- 
sity. His  acts  in  this  respect,  even  if  wise  and 
just  in  themselves,  are  inexcusable,  because 
done  by  one  who  has  no  legal  right  to  do 
them.  Yet  his  usurpation  is  apparently  sus- 
tained by  public  sentiment,  and  a  deep  wound 
is  inflicted  on  the  constitution,  which  will  be 
long  in  healing. 

The  danger  in  this  respect  is  all  the  greater 
because  it  did  not  originate  with  the  rebellion, 
but  had  manifested  itself  for  a  long  time  before. 
There  is  a  growing  disposition  on  the  part  of 
Congress  to  throw  as  much  of  the  business  of 
government  as  possible  into  the  hands  of  the 
Executive.  The  patronage  the  Executive 
wields,  even  in  times  of  peace,  is  so  large  that 
he  has  indirectly  an  almost  supreme  control 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES.  373 

over  the  legislative  branch  of  the  government. 
For  this,  which  is,  and,  if  not  checked  will  con- 
tinue to  be,  a  growing  evil,  there  is  no  obvious 
remedy,  unless  the  President  is  chosen  for  a 
longer  term  of  office  and  made  ineligible  for  a 
second  term,  and  the  mischievous  doctrine  of 
rotation  in  office  is  rejected  as  incompatible 
with  the  true  interests  of  the  public.  Here  is 
matter  for  the  consideration  of  the  American 
statesman.  But  as  to  the  usurpations  of  the 
Executive  in  these  unsettled  times,  they  will 
be  only  temporary,  and  will  cease  when  the 
States  are  all  restored.  They  are  abuses,  but 
only  temporary  abuses,  and  the  Southern  States, 
■when  restored  to  the  Union,  will  resume  their 
rights  in  their  own  sphere,  as  self-governing 
communities,  and  legalize  or  undo  the  unwar- 
rantable acts  of  the  Federal  Executive. 

The  socialistic  and  centralizing  tendency  in 
the  bosom  of  the  individual  States  is  the  most 
dangerous,  but  it  will  not  be  able  to  become 
predominant;  for  philanthropy,  unlike  char- 
ity, does  not  begin  at  home,  and  is  powerless 
unless  it  operates  at  a  distance.  In  the  States  in 
which  the  humanitarian  tendency  is  the  strongest, 
the  territorial  democracy  has  its  most  effective 
organization.  Prior  to  the  outbreak  of  the 
rebellion    the  American   people   had   asserted 


874  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC 

popular  sovereignty,  but  had  never  rendered 
an  account  to  themselves  in  what  sense  the  peo- 
ple are  or  are  not  sovereign.  They  had  never 
distinguished  the  three  sorts  of  democracy  from 
one  another,  asked  themselves  which  of  the 
three  is  the  distinctively  American  democracy. 
For  them,  democracy  was  democracy,  and  those 
who  saw  dangers  ahead  sought  to  avoid  them 
either  by  exaggerating  one  or  the  other  of 
the  two  exclusive  tendencies,  or  else  by  re- 
straining democracy  itself  through  restrictions 
on  suffrage.  The  latter  class  began  to  distrust 
universal  suffrage,  to  lose  faith  in  the  people,, 
and  to  dream  of  modifying  the  American  con- 
stitution so  as  to  make  it  conform  more  nearly 
to  the  English  model.  The  war  has  proved 
that  they  were  \^Tong,  for  nothing  is  more  cer- 
tain than  that  the  people  have  saved  the  national 
unity  and  integrity  almost  in  spite  of  their  gov- 
ernment. The  General  government  either  wa» 
not  disposed  or  was  afraid  to  take  a  decided 
stand  against  secession,  till  forced  to  do  it  by 
the  people  themselves.  No  wise  American  can 
henceforth  distrust  American  democracy.  The 
people  may  be  trusted.  So  much  is  settled. 
But  as  the  two  extremes  were  equally  demo- 
cratic, as  the  secessionists  acted  in  the  name  of 
popular  sovereignty,  and  as  the  humanitarians 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES.  376 

were  not  unwilling  to  allow  separation,  and 
would  not  and  did  not  engage  in  the  war  against 
secession  for  tlie  sake  of  the  Union  and  the  in- 
tegrity of  the  national  domain,  the  conviction 
becomes  irresistible  that  it  was  not  democracy 
in  the  sense  of  either  of  the  extremes  that 
made  the  war  and  came  out  of  it  victorious ;  and 
hence  the  real  American  democracy  must  differ 
ft'om  them  both,  and  is  neither  a  personal  nor  a 
humanitarian,  but  a  territorial  democracy.  The 
true  idea  of  American  democracy  thus  comes 
out,  for  the  first  time,  freed  from  the  two  ex- 
treme democracies  which  have  been  identified 
with  it,  and  henceforth  enters  into  the  under- 
standings  as  well  as  the  hearts  of  the  people. 
The  war  has  enlightened  patriotism,  and  what 
was  sentiment  or  instinct  becomes  reason — a 
well-defined,  and  clearly  understood  constitu- 
tional conviction. 

In  the  several  States  themselves  there  are 
many  things  to  prevent  the  socialistic  tendency 
from  becoming  exclusive.  In  the  States  that 
seceded  socialism  has  never  had  a  foothold,  and 
will  not  gain  it,  for  it  is  resisted  by  all  the  sen- 
timents, convictions,  and  habits  t+*the  Southern 
people,  and  the  Southern  people  will  not  be  ex- 
terminated nor  swamped  by  migrations  either 
from  the  North  or  from  Europe.     They  are  and 


376  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

always  will  be  an  agricultural  people,  and  an 
agricultural  people  are  and  always  will  be  op- 
posed to  socialistic  dreams,  unless  unwittingly 
held  for  a  moment  to  favor  it  in  pursuit  of  some 
special  object  in  which  they  tate  a  passionate 
interest.  The  worst  of  all  policies  is  that  of 
hanging,  exiling,  or  disfranchising  the  wealthy 
landholders  of  the  South,  in  order  to  bring  up 
the  poor  and  depressed  whites,  shadowed  forth 
in  the  Executive  proclamation  of  the  29th  of 
May,  1865.  Of  course  that  policy  will  not  be 
carried  out,  and  if  the  negroes  are  enfranchised, 
they  will  always  vote  with  the  wealthy  land- 
holding  class,  and  aid  them  in  resisting  all 
socialistic  tendencies.  The  humanitarians  will 
fail  for  the  want  of  a  good  social  grievance 
against  which  they  can  declaim. 

In  the  New  England  States  the  humanita- 
rian tendency  is  strong  as  a  speculation,  but 
only  in  relation  to  objects  at  a  distance.  It  is 
aided  much  by  the  congregational  constitution 
of  their  religion ;  yet  it  is  weak  at  home,  and 
h  resisted  practically  by  the  territorial  division 
of  power.  New  England  means  Massachusetts, 
and  nowhere  is  the  subdivision  of  the  pow- 
ers of  government  carried  further,  or  the  consti- 
tution of  the  territorial  democracy  moi-e  com- 
plete, than   in   that  State.     Philanthropy  sel- 


POLITICAL  TENDEXCIES.  377 

■dom  works  in  private  against  piivate  vices  and" 
€vils  :  it  is  effective  only  against  public  griev- 
ances, and  the  farther  they  are  from  home  and 
the  less  its  right  to  interfere  with  them,  the 
more  in  earnest  and  the  more  effective  for  evil 
does  it  become.  Its  nature  is  to  mind  every- 
one's business  but  its  own.  But  now  that 
slavery  is  abolished,  there  is  nowhere  in  the 
United  States  a  social  grievance  of  magnitude 
enough  to  enlist  any  considerable  number  of 
the  people,  even  of  Massachusetts,  in  a  move- 
ment to  redress  it.  Negro  enfranchisement  is 
3,  question  of  which  the  humanitarians  can 
make  something,  and  they  will  make  the  most 
of  it ;  but  as  it  is  a  question  that  each  State 
will  soon  settle  for  itself,  it  will  not  serve  their 
purpose  of  prolonged  agitation.  They  could 
not  and  never  did  carry  away  the  nation,  even 
on  the  question  of  slavery  itself,  and  abolition- 
ism had  comparatively  little  direct  influence  in 
abolishing  slavery ;  and  the  exclusion  of  negro 
suffrage  can  never  be  made  to  appear  to  the 
American  people  •  as  any  thing  like  so  great  a 
grievance  as  was  slavery. 

Besides,  in  all  the  States  that  did  not  secede, 
Catholics  are  a  numerous  and  an  important  por- 
tion of  the  population.  Their  increasing  num- 
bers, wealth,  and  education  secure  them,  as  much 


378  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

as  the  majority  may  dislike  their  religion,  a- 
constantly  increasing  influence,  and  it  is  idle  to 
leave  them  out  in  counting  the  future  of  the 
countiy.  They  will,  in  a  very  few  years,  be 
the  best  and  most  thoroughly  educated  class 
of  the  American  people ;  and,  aside  from  their 
religion,  or,  rather,  in  consequence  of  their  re- 
ligion, the  most  learned,  enlightened,  and  intelli- 
gent portion  of  the  American  population  ;  and 
as  much  as  they  have  disliked  the  abolitionists^ 
they  have,  in  the  army  and  elsewhere,  contrib- 
uted their  full  share  to  the  victoiy  the  nation 
has  won.  The  best  things  written  on  the  con- 
troversy have  been  written  by  Catholics,  and 
Catholics  are  better  fitted  by  their  religion  to 
comprehend  the  real  character  of  the  American 
constitution  than  any  other  class  of  Ameri- 
cans, the  moment  they  study  it  in  the  light  of 
their  own  theology.  The  American  constitu- 
tion is  based  on  that  of  natural  society,  on  the 
solidarity  of  the  race,  and  the  difference  be- 
tween natural  society  and  the  church  or  Chris- 
tian society  is,  that  the  one  is  initial  and  the 
other  teleological.  The  law  of  both  is  the 
same ;  Catholics,  as  such,  must  resist  both  ex- 
tremes, because  each  is  exclusive,  and  whatever 
is  exclusive  or  one-sided  is  uncatholic.  If  they 
have  been  backward  in  their  sympathy  with 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES.  379" 

the  government,  it  has  been  through  their  dis- 
like of  the  puritanic  spirit  and  the  humanita- 
rian or  socialistic  elements  they  detected  in  the 
Kepublican  party,  joined  with  a  prejudice 
against  political  and  social  negro  equality.  But 
their  church  everywhere  opposes  the  socialistic 
movements  of  the  age,  all  movements  in  behalf 
of  barbarism,  and  they  may  always  be  counted 
on  to  resist  the  advance  of  the  socialistic  de- 
mocracy. If  the  country  has  had  reason  to 
complain  of  some  of  them  in  the  late  war,  it 
will  have,  in  the  future,  far  stronger  reason  to 
be  grateful ;  not  to  them,  indeed,  for  the  citizen 
owes  his  life  to  his  country,  but  to  their  reli- 
gion, which  has  been  and  is  the  grand  protec- 
tress of  modern  society  and  civilization. 

From  the  origin  of  the  government  there 
has  been  a  tendency  to  the  extension  of  suffrage, 
and  to  exclude  both  birth  and  private  property 
as  bases  of  political  rights  or  franchises.  This 
tendency  has  often  been  justified  on  the  ground 
that  the  elective  fi'anchise  is  a  natural  right ; 
which  is  not  true,  because  the  elective  franchise 
is  political  power,  and  political  power  is  always 
a  civil  trust,  never  a  natural  right,  and  the 
state  judges  for  itself  to  whom  it  will  or  will 
not  confide  the  trust ;  but  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  it  is  a  normal  tendency,  and  in  strict 


880  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

accordance  witli  the  constitution  of  American 
civil  society,  which  rests  on  the  unity  of  the 
race,  and  public  instead  of  private  property. 
All  political  distinctions  founded  on  birth,  race, 
or  private  wealth  are  anomalies  in  the  Ameri- 
can system,  and  are  necessarily  eliminated  by 
its  normal  developments.  To  contend  that  none 
but  property-holders  may  vote,  or  none  but  per- 
sons of  a  particular  race  may  be  enfranchised, 
is  un  American  and  contrary  to  the  order  of  civ- 
ilization the  New  World  is  developing.  The 
only  qualification  for  the  elective  franchise  the 
American  system  can  logically  insist  on  is  that 
the  elector  belong  to  the  territorial  people — 
that  is,  be  a  natural-born  or  a  naturalized  citi- 
zen, be  a  major  in  fall  possession  of  his  natural 
faculties,  and  unconvicted  of  any  infamous  of- 
fence. The  State  is  free  to  naturalize  foreign- 
ers or  not,  and  under  such  restrictions  as  it 
judges  proper;  but,  having  naturalized  them, 
it  must  treat  them  as  standing  on  the  same 
footing  with  natural-born  citizens. 

The  naturalization  question  is  one  of  great 
national  importance.  The  migration  of  for- 
eigners hither  has  added  largely  to  the  national 
population,  and  to  the  national  wealth  and  re- 
•sources,  but  less,  perhaps,  to  the  development 
of  patriotism,  the  purity  of  elections,  or  the 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES.  38) 

wisdom  and  integrity  of  the  government.  It  is 
impossible  that  tliere  should  be  perfect  harmony 
between  the  national  territorial  democracy  and 
individuals  born,  brought  up,  and  formed  under 
a  political  order  in  many  respects  widely  dif- 
ferent from  it;  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  the 
democracy,  in  its  objectionable  sense,  has  been 
greatly  strengthened  by  the  large  infusion  of 
naturalized  citizens.  There  can  be  no  question 
that,  if  the  laboring  classes,  in  whom  the  na- 
tional sentiment  is  usually  the  strongest,  had 
been  composed  almost  wholly  of  native  Ameri- 
cans, instead  of  being,  as  they  were,  at  least  in 
the  cities,  large  towns,  and  villages,  composed 
almost  exclusively  of  persons  foreign  born,  the 
Government  would  have  found  far  less  difficul- 
ty in  filling  up  the  depleted  ranks  of  its  armies. 
But  to  leave  so  large  a  portion  of  the  actual 
population  as  the  foreign  bom  residing  in  the 
country  without  the  rights  of  citizens,  would 
have  been  a  far  graver  evil,  and  would,  in  the 
late  struggle,  have  given  the  victory  to  seces- 
sion. There  are  great  national  advantages  de- 
rived from  the  migration  hither  of  foreign  labor, 
and  if  the  migration  be  encouraged  or  permitted, 
naturalization  on  easy  and  liberal  terms  is  the 
wisest,  the  best,  and  only  safe  policy.  The  chil- 
dren of  foreign-born  parents  are  real  Americana 


4J82  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

Emigration  has,  also,  a  singular  effect  in  de- 
veloping the  latent  powers  of  the  emigrant,  and 
the  children  of  emigrants  are  usually  more 
active,  more  energetic  than  the  children  of  the 
older  inhabitants  of  the  country  among  whom 
they  settle.  Some  of  our  first  men  in  civil  life 
^  have  been  sons  of  foreign-born  parents,  and  so 
are  not  a  few  of  our  greatest  and  most  success- 
ful generals.  The  most  successful  of  our  mer- 
xjhants  have  been  foreign-born.  The  same  thing 
has  been  noticed  elsewhere,  especially  in  the 
emigration  of  the  French  Huguenots  to  Holland, 
■Germany,  England,  and  Ireland.  The  immigra- 
tion of  so  many  millions  from  the  Old  World 
has,  no  doubt,  given  to  the  Amencan  people 
much  of  their  bold,  energetic,  and  adventurous 
•character,  and  made  them  a  superior  people  on 
the  whole  to  what  they  would  otherwise  have 
been.  This  has  nothing  to  do  with  superiority 
or  inferiority  of  race  or  blood,  but  is  a  natural 
effect  of  breaking  men  away  from  routine,  and 
throwing  them  back  on  their  own  individual 
energies  and  personal  resources. 

Kesistance  is  offered  to  negro  suffrage,  and 
justly  too,  till  the  recently  emancipated  slaves 
have  served  an  apprenticeship  to  freedom  ;  but 
that  resistance  cannot  long  stand  before  the  on- 
•ward  progress  of  American   democracy,  which 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES.  383 

asserts  eqnail  rights  for  all,  and  not  for  a  I'ace 
or  class  only.  Some  would  confine  suffrage  to 
landholders,  or,  at  least,  to  property-holders ; 
but  that  is  inconsistent  with  the  American  idea, 
and  is  a  relic  of  the  barbaric  constitution  which 
founds  power  on  private  instead  of  public 
wealth.  Nor  are  property-owners  a  whit  more 
likely  to  vote  for  the  public  good  than  are  those 
who  own  no  property  but  their  own  labor.  The 
men  of  wealth,  the  business  men,  manufactur- 
ers and  merchants,  bankers  and  brokers,  are  the 
men  who  exert  the  worst  influence  on  govern- 
ment in  every  country,  for  they  always  strive 
to  use  it  as  an  instrument  of  advancing  their 
own  private  interests.  They  act  on  the  beau- 
tiful maxim,  "  Let  gover^jment  take  care  of  the 
rich,  and  the  rich  will  take  care  of  the  poor," 
instead  of  the  far  safer  maxim,  '^Let  govern- 
ment take  care  of  the  weak,  the  strong  can  take 
care  of  themselves."  Universal  suffras-e  is  bet- 
ter  than  restricted  suffrage,  but  even  universal 
suffrage  is  too  weak  to  prevent  private  property 
from  having  an  undue  political  influence. 

The  evils  attributed  to  universal  suffrage  are 
not  inseparable  from  it,  and,  after  all,  it  is 
doubtful  if  it  elevates  men  of  an  inferior  class 
to  those  elevated  by  restricted  suffrage.  The 
Congress  of  I860,  or  of  1862,  was  a  fair  average 


S84  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

of  the  wisdom,  the  talent,  and  the  virtue  of  the 
country,  and  not  inferior  to  that  of  1776,  or 
that  of  1^89;  and  the  Executive  during  the  re- 
bellion was  at  least  as  able  and  as  efficient  as 
it  was  during  the  war  of  1812,  far  superior  to 
that  of  Great  Britain,  and  not  inferior  to  that 
of  France  during  the  Crimean  war.  The  Cri- 
mean war  developed  and  placed  in  high  com- 
mand, either  with  the  English  or  the  French,  no 
generals  equal  to  Halleck,  Grant,  and  Sherman, 
to  say  nothing  of  others.  The  more  aristocratic 
South  proved  itself,  in  both  statesmanship  and 
generalship,  in  no  respect  superior  to  the  ter- 
ritorial democracy  of  the  North  and  West. 

The  great  evil  the  country  experiences  is  not 
from  universal  suffrage,  but  from  what  may 
be  called  rotation  in  office.  The  number  of  po- 
litical aspirants  is  so  great  that,  in  the  Northern 
and  Western  States  especially,  the  representa- 
tives in  Congress  are  changed  every  two  or  four 
years,  and  a  member,  as  soon  as  he  has  acquired 
the  experience  necessary  to  qualify  him  for  his 
position,  is  dropped,  not  through  the  fickleness 
of  his  constituency,  but  to  give  place  to  another 
whose  aid  had  been  necessary  to  his  first  or 
second  election.  '  Employes  are  "  rotated,"  not 
because  they  are  incapable  or  unfaithful,  but 
because  there  are  others  who  want  their  places. 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES.  385 

This  is  all  bad,  but  it  springs  not  from  univer- 
sal suffrage,  but  from  a  wrong  public  opinion, 
which  might  be  corrected  by  the  press,  but 
which  is  mainly  formed  by  it.  There  is,  no 
doubt,  a  due  share  of  official  corruption,  but 
not  more  than  elsewhere,  and  that  would  be 
much  diminished  by  increasing  the  salaries  of 
the  public  servants,  especially  in  the  higher 
offices  of  the  government,  both  General  and 
State.  The  pay  to  the  lower  officers  and  em-' 
ployes  of  the  government,  and  to  the  privates 
and  non-commissioned  officers  in  the  army,  is 
liberal,  and,  in  general,  too  liberal ;  but  the  pay 
of  the  higher  grades  in  both  the  civil  and  mili- 
tary service  is  too  low,  and  relatively  far  lower 
than  it  was  when  the  government  was  first  or- 
ganized. 

The  worst  tendency  in  the  country,  and 
which  is  not  encoui'aged  at  all  by  the  territo- 
rial democracy,  manifests  itself  in  hostility  to 
the  military  spirit  and  a  standing  army.  The 
depreciation  of  the  military  spirit  comes  from 
the  humanitarian  or  sentimental  democracy, 
which,  like  all  sentimentalisms,  defeats  itself, 
and  brings  about  the  very  evils  it  seeks  to 
avoid.  The  hostility  to  standing  armies  is  in- 
herited from  England,  and  originated  in  the 
quarrels  between  king  and  parliament,  and  is  a 

26 


386  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC 

striking  evidence  of  the  folly  of  that  bundle  of 
antagonistic  forces  called  the  British  constitution. 
In  feudal  times  most  of  the  land  was  held  by 
military  service,  and  the  reliance  of  government 
was  on  the  feudal  militia ;  but  no  real  progress 
was  made  in  eliminating  barbarism  till  the  na- 
tional authority  got  a  regular  army  at  its  com- 
mand, and  became  able  to  defend  itself  against 
its  enemies.  It  is  very  doubtful  if  English  civil- 
ization has  not,  upon  the  whole,  lost  more  than 
it  has  gained  by  substituting  parliamentary  for 
royal  supremacy,  and  exchanging  the  Stuarts 
for  the  Guelfs. 

No  nation  is  a  living,  prosperous  nation  that 
has  lost  the  military  spirit,  or  in  which  the  pro- 
fession of  the  soldier  is  not  held  in  honor  and 
esteem ;  and  a  standing  army  of  reasonable  size 
is  public  economy.  It  absorbs  in  its  ranks  a 
class  of  men  who  are  worth  more  there  than 
anywhere  else ;  it  creates  honorable  places  for 
gentlemen  or  the  sons  of  gentlemen  without 
wealth,  in  which  they  can  serve  both  them- 
selves and  their  country.  Under  a  democratic 
government  the  most  serious  embarrassment 
to  the  state  is  its  gentlemen,  or  persons  not 
disposed  or  not  fitted  to  support  themselves 
by  their  own  hands,  more  necessary  in  a  demo- 
cratic government  than  in  any  other.     The  civil 


POLITICAL  TEXDENCIES.  387 

service,  divinity,  law,  and  medicine,  together 
with  literature,  science,  and  art,  cannot  absorb 
the  whole  of  this  ever-increasing  class,  and  the 
army  and  navy  would  be  an  economy  and  a 
real  service  to  the  st'ate  were  they  maintained 
only  for  the  sake  of  the  rank  and  position  they 
give  to  their  officers,  and  the  wholesome  influ- 
ence these  officers  would  exert  on  society  and 
the  politics  of  the  country — this  even  in  case 
there  were  no  wars  or  apprehension  of  wars. 
They  supply  an  element  needed  in  all  society, 
to  sustain  in  it  the  chivalric  and  heroic  spirit, 
perpetually  endangered  by  the  mercantile  and 
political  spirit,  which  has  in  it  always  some- 
thins;  low  and  sordid. 

But  wars  are  inevitable,  and  when  a  nation 
has  no  surrounding  nations  to  fight,  it  will,  as 
we  have  just  proved,  fight  itself.  When  it  can 
have  no  foreign  war,  it  will  get  up  a  domestic 
war ;  for  the  human  animal,  like  all  animals, 
must  work  off  in  some  way  its  fighting  humor, 
and  the  only  sure  way  of  maintaining  peace  is 
always  to  be  prepared  for  war.  A  regular 
standing  army  of  forty  thousand  men  would 
have  prevented  the  Mexican  war,  and  an  army 
of  fifty  thousand  well-disciplined  and  efficient 
troops  at  the  command  of  the  President  on  his 
inauguration  in  March,  1861,  would  have  pre- 


388  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

vented  the  rebellion,  or  have  instantly  sup- 
pressed it..  The  cost  of  maintaining  a  land 
anny  of  even  a  hundred  thousand  men,  and  a 
naval  force  to  correspond,  would  have  been,  in 
simple  money  value,  only  a  tithe  of  what  the 
rebellion  has  cost  the  nation,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  valuable  lives  that  have  been  sacrificed — 
for  the  losses  on  the  rebel  side,  as  well  as  those 
on  the  side  of  the  government,  are  equally  to  be 
counted.  The  actual  losses  to  the  country  have 
been  not  less  than  six  or  eight  thousand  millions 
of  dollars,  or  nearly  one-half  the  assessed  value 
of  the  whole  property  of  the  United  States  ac- 
cording to  the  census  returns  of  1860,  and  which 
has  only  been  partially  cancelled  by  actual  in- 
crease of  property  since.  To  meet  the  interest  on 
the  debt  incurred  will  require  a  heavier  sum  to 
be  raised  annually  by  taxation,  twice  over,  with- 
out discharging  a  cent  of  the  principal,  than 
would  have  been  necessary  to  maintain  an  army 
and  navy  adequate  to  the  protection  of  peace 
and  the  prevention  of  the  rebellion. 

The  rebellion  is  now  suppressed,  and  if  the 
government  does  not  blunder  much  more  in 
its  civil  efforts  at  pacification  than  it  did  in  its 
military  operations,  before  1868  things  will 
settle  down  into  their  normal  order ;  but  a  reg- 
ular army — not  militia  or  volunteers,  who  are 


POLITICAL  TENDENCIES.  -  389 

too  expensive — of  at  least  a  hundred  thousand 
men  of  all  arms,  and  a  navy  nearly  as  large  as 
that  of  England  or  France,  will  be  needed  as  a 
peace  establishment.  The  army  of  a  hundred 
thousand  men  must  form  a  cadre  of  an  army 
of  three  times  that  number,  which  will  be  ne- 
cessary to  place  the  army  on  a  war  footing. 
Less  will  answer  neither  for  peace  nor  war,  for 
the  nation  has,  in  spite  of  herself,  to  maintain 
henceforth  the  rank  of  a  first-class  military 
and  maritime  power,  and  take  a  leading  part 
in  political  movements  of  the  civilized  world, 
and,  to  a  great  extent,  hold  in  her  hand  the 
peace  of  Europe. 

Canning  boasted  that  he  had  raised  up  the 
New  World  to  redress  the  balance  of  the  Old : 
a  vain  boast,  for  he  simply  weakened  Spain  and. 
gave  the  hegemony  of  Europe  to  Russia,  which 
the  Emperor  of  the  French  is  trying,  by 
strengthening  Italy  and  Spain,  and  by  a  French 
protectorate  in  Mexico,  to  secure  to  France, 
both  in  the  Old  World  and  the  New — a  magnifi- 
cent dream,  but  not  to  be  realized.  His  uncle 
judged  more  wisely  when  he  sold  Louisiana, 
left  the  New  World  to  itself,  and  sought  only  to 
secure  to  France  the  hegemony  of  the  Old.  But 
the  hegemony  of  the  New  World  henceforth  be- 
longs to  the  United  States,  and  she  will  have 


39  »  -         THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

a  potent  voice  in  adjusting  the  balance  of  power 
even  in  Europe.  To  maintain  this  position^ 
which  is  imperative  on  her,  she  must  always 
have  a  large  armed  force,  either  on  foot  or  in 
reserve,  which  she  can  call  out  and  put  on  a  war 
footinor  at  short  notice.  The  United  States 
must  henceforth  be  a  great  military  and  naval 
power,  and  the  old  hostility  to  a  standing  army 
and  the  old  attempt  to  bring  the  military  into- 
disrepute  must  be  abandoned,  and  the  country 
yield  to  its  destiny. 

Of  the  several  tendencies  mentioned,  the  hu- 
manitarian tendency,  egoistical  at  the  South,  de- 
tachinof  the  individual  from  the  race,  and  social- 
istic  at  the  North,  absorbing  the  individual  in 
the  race,  is  the  most  dangerous.  The  egoistical 
form  is  checked,  sufficiently  weakened  by  the 
defeat  of  the  rebels ;  but  the  social  form  be- 
lieves that  it  has  triumphed,  and  that  individu- 
als are  effaced  in  society,"  and  the  States  in  the 
Union.  Against  this,  more  especially  should 
public  opinion  and  American  statesmanship  be 
now  directed,  and  temtorial  democracy  and 
the  division  of  the  powers  of  government  be 
asserted  and  vigorously  maintained.  The  dan- 
ger is  that  while  this  socialistic  form  of  democ- 
racy is  conscious  of  itself,  the  territorial  de- 
mocracy has  not  yet  anived,  as  the  Germans 


POLITICAL  TENDBNXJIES.  391 

say,  at  self  consciousness  —  selhshewusstseyn — 
and  operates  only  instinctively.  All  the  domi- 
nant theories  and  sentimentalities  are  against 
it,  and  it  is  only  Providence  that  can  sustain  it. 


892  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBUa 


CHAPTER  XV. 

DESTINY— POLITICAL  AND  RELIGIOUS. 

It  lias  been  said  in  the  Introduction  to  this 
essay  that  eveiy  living  nation  receives  from 
Providence  a  special  work  or  mission  in  the 
progress  of  society,  to  accomplish  which  is 
its  destiny,  or  the  end  for  which  it  exists ;  and 
that  the  special  mission  of  the  United  States  is 
to  continue  and  complete  in  the  political  order 
the  Graeco-Roman  civilization. 

Of  all  the  states  or  colonies  on  this  continent, 
the  American  Republic  alone  has  a  destiny,  or 
the  ability  to  add  any  thing  to  the  civilization 
of  the  race.  Canada  and  the  other  British 
Provinces,  Mexico  and  Central  America,  Co- 
lumbia and  Brazil,  and  the  rest  of  the  South 
American  States,  might  be  absorbed  in  the 
United  States  without  being  missed  by  the  civ- 
ilized world.  They  represent  no  idea,  and  the 
work  of  civilization  could  go  on  without  them 
as  well  as  with  them.  K  they  keep  up  with 
the  progress  of  civilization,  it  is  all  that  can  be 
expected  of  them.  France,  England,  Gei-many, 
and  Italy  might  absorb  the  rest  of  Europe,  and 


DESTINY— POLITICAL  AND  RELIGIOUS.  393 

all  Asia  and  Africa,  without  withdrawing  a 
single  laborer  from  the  work  of  advancing 
the  civilization  of  the  race  ;  and  it  is  doubtful 
if  these  nations  themselves  can  severally  or 
jointly  advance  it  much  beyond  the  point 
reached  by  the  Roman  Empire,  except  in  abol- 
ishing slavery  and  including  in  the  political 
people  the  whole  territorial  people.  They  can 
only  develop  and  give  a  general  application  to 
the  fundamental  principles  of  the  Roman  consti- 
tution. That  indeed  is  much,  but  it  adds  no  new 
element  nor  new  combination  of  pre-existing 
elements.  But  nothing  of  this  can  be  said  of 
the  United  States. 

In  the  Graeco-Roman  civilization  is  found  the 
state  proper,  and  the  great  principle  of  the  ter- 
ritorial constitution  of  power,  instead  of  the 
personal  or  the  genealogical,  the  patriarchal  or 
the  monarchical ;  and  yet  with  true  civil  or  po- 
litical principles  it  mixed  up  nearly  all  the 
elements  of  the  barbaric  constitution.  The 
gentile  system  of  Rome  recalls  the  patriarchal, 
and  the  relation  that  subsisted  between  the 
patron  and  his  clients  has  a  striking  resem- 
blance to  that  which  subsists  between  the 
feudal  lord  and  his  retainers,  and  may  have 
Lad  the  same  origin.  The  three  tribes,  Ramnes, 
Quirites,  and  Luceres,  into  which  the  Roman 


394  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBUO. 

people  were  divided  before  the  rise  of  the- 
plebs,  may  have  been,  as  Niebuhr  contends, 
local,  not  genealogical,  in  their  origin,  but  they 
were  not  strictly  territorial  distinctions,  and  the 
division  of  each  tribe  into  a  hundred  houses  or 
gentes  was  not  local,  but  personal,  if  not,  as  the 
name  implies,  genealogical.  No  doubt  the  in- 
dividuals or  families  composing  the  house  or 
gens  were  not  all  of  kindred  blood,  for  the 
Oi'iental  custom  of  adoption,  so  frequent  with 
our  North  American  Indians,  and  with  all  peo- 
ple distributed  into  tribes,  septs,  or  clans,  ob- 
tained with  the  Romans.  The  adopted  member 
was  considered  a  child  of  the  house,  and  took 
its  name  and  inherited  its  goods.  Whether,  as 
Niebuhr  maintains,  all  the  free  gentiles  of  the 
three  tribes  were  called  patres  or  patri- 
cians, or  whether  the  term  was  restricted  to  the 
heads  of  houses,  it  is  certain  that  the  head  of 
the  house  represented  it  in  the  senate,  and  the 
vote  in  the  curies  was  by  houses,  not  by  indi- 
viduals en  masse.  After  all,  practically  the 
Roman  senate  was  hardly  less  an  estate  than, 
the  English  house  of  lords,  for  no  one  could 
sit  in  it  unless  a  lauded  proprietor  and  of  noble 
blood.  The  plebs,  though  outside  of  the 
political  people  proper,  as  not  being  included 
in  the  three   tribes,  when  they  came  to  be  a 


DESTINY— POLITICAL  AND  RELIGIOUS.  395 

power  in  the  republic  under  the  emperors,  and 
the  old  distinction  of  plebs  and  patricians  was. 
forgotten,  were  an  estate,  and  not  a  local  or  ter- 
ritorial people. 

The  republican  element  was  in  the  fact  that 
the  land,  which  gave  the  right  to  participate  in 
political  power,  was  the  domain  of  the  state,. 
and  the  tenant  held,  it  from  the  state.  The 
domain  was  vested  in  the  state,  not  in  the  sen- 
ator nor  the  prince,  and  was  therefore  respuhlicay 
not  private  property  —  the  first  grand  leap  of 
the  human  race  from  barbarism.  In  all  other- 
respects  the  Roman  constitution  was  no  more 
republican  than  the  feudal.  Athens  went 
farther  than  Rome,  and  introduced  the  prin- 
ciple of  territorial  democracy.  The  division 
into  demes  or  wards,  whence  comes  the  word 
democracy^  was.  a  real  territorial  division,  not 
personal  nor  genealogical.  And  if  the  equality 
of  all  men  was  not  recognized,  all  who  were- 
included  in  the  political  class  stood  on  the  same 
footing.  Athens  and  other  Greek  cities,  though 
conquered  by  Rome,  exerted  after  their  con- 
quest a  powerful  influence  on  Roman  civiliza- 
tion,  which  became  far  more  democratic  under 
the  emperors  than  it  had  been  under  the  patri- 
cian senate,  which  the  assassins  of  Julius  Caesar,. 
and  the  superannuated  conservative  party  they 


396  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

represented,  tried  so  hard  to  preserve.  The 
senate  and  the  consulship  were  opened  to  the 
representatives  of  the  great  plebeian  houses,  and 
the  provincials  were  clothed  with  the  rights  of 
Roman  citizens,  and  uniform  laws  were  estab- 
lished throughout  the  empire. 

The  grand  error,  as  has  already  been  said,  of 
the  Grseco-Roman  or  geijtile  civilization,  was 
in  its  denial  or  ignorance  of  the  unity  of  the 
human  race,  as  well  as  the  Unity  of  God,  and 
in  its  including  in  the  state  only  a  particular 
class  of  the  territorial  people,  while  it  held  all 
the  rest  as  slaves,  thoug-h  in  different  decrees 
of  servitude.  It  recognized  and  sustained  a 
privileged  class,  a  ruling  order ;  and  if,  as  sub- 
sequently did  the  Venetian  aristocracy,  it  re- 
cognized democratic  equality  witliin  that  order, 
it  held  all  outside  of  it  to  be  less  than  men  and 
without  political  rights.  Practically,  power 
was  an  attribute  of  birth  and  of  private  wealth. 
-Suflfrage  was  almost  universal  among  freemen, 
but  down  almost  to  the  Empire,  the  people  voted 
by  orders,  and  were  counted,  not  numerically, 
but  by  the  rank  of  the  order,  and  the  comitia 
curiata  could  always  carry  the  election  over  the 
oomitia  centuriata,  and  thus  power  remained 
Always  in  the  hands  of  the  rich  and  noble  few. 

The  Roman  law,  as  digested  by  jurists  under 


DESTINT— POLITICAL  AND  RELIGIOUS.  397 

Justinian  in  the  sixth  century,  indeed,  recog- 
nizes the  unity  of  the  race,  asserts  the  equality  of 
all  men  by  the  natural  law,  and  undertakes  to- 
defend  slavery  on  principles  not  incompatible 
with  that  equality.'  It  represents  it  as  a  com- 
mutation of  the  punishment  of  death,  which  the 
emperor  has  the  right  to  inflict  on  captives  taken 
in  war,  to  perpetual  servitude;  and  as  servitude 
is  less  severe  than  death,  slavery  was  really  a 
proof  of  imperial  clemency.  But  it  has  never 
yet  been  proved  that  the  emperor  has  the  right 
under  the  natural  law  to  put  captives  taken 
even  in  a  just  war  to  death,  and  the  Koman 
poet  himself  bids  us  "  humble  the  proud,  but 
spare  the  submissive."  In  a  just  war  the  em- 
peror may  kill  on  the  battle-field  those  in  aims 
against  him,  but  the  jus  gentiunij  as  now  inter- 
preted by  the  jurisprudence  of  every  civilized 
nation,  does  not  allow  him  to  put  them  to  death 
after  they  have  ceased  resistance,  have  thrown 
down  their  arms,  and  surrendered.  But  even 
if  it  did,  it  gives  him  a  right  only  over  the  per- 
sons captured,  not  over  their  innocent  children^ 
and  therefore  no  right  to  establish  hereditary 
slavery,  for  the  child  is  not  punishable  for  the  of- 
fences of  the  parent.  The  law,  indeed,  assumed 
that  the  captive  ceased  to  exist  as  a  person 
and  treated   him  ^s  a  thing,  or  mere  property 


:398  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

of  the  conqueror ;  and  being  property,  he  could 
l^eget  only  property,  which  would  accrue  only 
to  his  owner.  But  there  is  no  power  in  heaven 
or  earth  that  can  make  a  person  a  thing,  a  mere 
piece  of  merchandise,  and  it  is  only  by  a  clumsy 
fiction,  or  rather  by  a  bare-faced  lie,  that  the 
law  denies  the  slave  his  personality  and  treats 
him  as  a  thing.  If  the  unity  of  the  race  and 
the  brotherhood  of  all  men  had  been  clearly 
seen  and  vividly  felt,  the  law  would  never  have 
attempted  to  justify  perpetual  slavery  on  the 
ground  of  its  penal  character,  or  indeed  on  any 
gi'ound  whatever.  All  men  are  born  under  the 
law  of  nature  with  equal  rights,  and  the  civil 
law  can  justly  deprive  no  man  of  his  liberty, 
but  for  a  crime,  committed  by  him  personally, 
that  justly  forfeits  his  liberty  to  society. 

These  defects  of  the  Graeco-Roman  civiliza- 
tion the  European  nations  have  in  part  reme- 
died, and  may  completely  remedy.  .  They  can 
carry  out  practically  the  Christian  dogma  of 
the  unity  of  the  human  race,  abolish  slavery  in 
every  form,  make  all  men  equal  before  the  law, 
and  the  political  people  commensurate  with  the 
territorial  people.  Indeed,  France  has  already 
done  it.  She  has  abolished  slavery,  villenage, 
serfage,  political  aristocracy,  asserted  the  equal- 
ity of  all  men  before  the  law,  vindicated  the 


DESTINY— POLITICAL  AND  RELIGIOUS.  399 

•sovereignty  of  the  people,  and  established  uni- 
versal suffrage,  complete  social  and  territorial 
democracy.  The  other  nations  may  do  as  much, 
but  hardly  can  any  of  them  do  more  or  advance 
farther.  Yet  in  France,  territorial  democracy 
the  most  complete  results  only  in  establishing 
the  most  complete  imperial  centralism,  usually 
called  Csesarism. 

The  imperial  constitution  of  France  recog- 
nizes that  the  emperor  reigns  "by  the  grace 
of  God  and  the  will  of  the  nation,"  and 
therefore,  that  by  the  grace  of  God  and  the 
will  of  the  nation  he  may  cease  to  reign ;  but 
while  he  reigns  he  is  supreme,  and  his  will  is 
law.  The  constitution  imposes  no  real  or  effec- 
tive restraint  on  his  power :  while  he  sits  upon 
the  throne  he  is  practically  France,  and  the 
ministers  are  his  clerks;  the  council  of  state, 
the  senate,  and  the  legislative  body  are  merely 
his  agents  in  governing  the  nation.  This  may, 
indeed,  be  changed,  but  only  to  substitute 
for.  imperial  centralism  democratic  centralism, 
which  were  no  improvement,  or  to  go  back  to 
the  system  of  antagonisms,  checks  and  balances, 
called  constitutionalism,  or  parliamentary  gov- 
ernment, of  which  Great  Britain  is  the  model, 
and  which  were  a  return  toward  barbarism,  or 
^mediaeval  feudalism. 


400  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

The  human  race  has  its  life  in  God,  and  tends 
to  realize  in  all  orders  the  Divine  Word  or 
Logos,  which  is  logic  itself,  and  the  principle  of 
all  conciliation,  of  the  dialectic  union  of  all 
opposites  or  extremes.  Mankind  will  be  logi- 
cal ;  and  the  worst  of  all  tyrannies  is  that  which 
forbids  them  to  draw  from  their  principles 
their  last  logical  consequences,  or  that  prohibits 
them  the  free  explication  and  application  of  the 
Divine  Idea,  in  which  consists  their  life,  their 
progress.  Such  tyranny  strikes  at  the  very 
existence  of  society,  and  wars  against  the  reality 
of  things.  It  is  supremely  sophistical,  and  its 
success  is  death ;  for  the  universe  in  its  consti* 
tution  is  supremely  logical,  and  man,  individu- 
ally and  socially,  is  rational.  God  is  the  author 
and  type  of  all  created  things;  and  all  crea- 
tures, each  in  its  order,  imitate  or  copies  the 
Divine  Being,  who  is  intrinsically  Father,  Son, 
and  Holy  Ghost,  principle,  medium,  and  end. 
The  Son  or  Word  is  the  medium,  which  unites 
the  two  extremes,  whence  God  is  living  God  — 
a  real,  active,  living  Being  —  living,  concrete, 
not  abstract  or  dead  unity,  like  the  unity 
of  old  Xenophanes,  Plotinus,  and  Proclus.  In 
the  Holy  Trinity  is  the  principle  and  pro- 
totype of  all  society,  and  what  is  called  the 
solidarity   of   the   race    is    only   the   outward 


DESTINY— POLITICAL  AND  RELIGIOUS.  401 

expression,  or  copy  in  the  external  order,  of 
what  theologians  term  the  circumsession  of  the 
tliree  Divine  Persons  of  the  Godhead. 

Now,  human  society,  when  it  copies  the  Di- 
vine essence  and  nature  either  in  the  distinction 
of  persons  alone,  or  in  the  unity  alone,  is  sophis- 
tical, and  wants  the  principle  of  all  life  and 
reality.  It  sins  against  God,  and  must  fail  of 
its  end.  The  English  system,  which  is  based 
on  antagonistic  elements,  on  opposites,  without 
the  middle  term  that  conciliates  them,  unites 
them,  and  makes  them  dialectically  one,  copies 
the  Divine  model  in  its  distinctions  alone, 
which,  considered  alone,  are  opposites  or  con- 
traries. It  denies,  if  Englishmen  could  but  see 
it,  the  unity  of  God.  The  French,  or  imperial 
system,  which  excludes  the  extremes,  instead 
of  uniting  them,  denies  all  opposites,  instead  of 
conciliating  them  —  denies  the  distinctions  in 
the  model,  and  copies  only  the  unity,  which  is 
the  supreme  sophism  called  pantheism.  The 
Eno-lish  constitution  has  no  middle  term,  and  the 
French  no  extremes,  and  each  in  its  way  denies 
the  Divine  Trinity,  the  original  basis  and  type 
of  the  syllogism.  The  human  race  can  be  con- 
tented with  neither,  for  neither  allows  it  free 
scope  for  its  inherent  life  and  activity.  The 
English  system  tends  to  pure  iudividualism ; 

27 


402  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

the  French  to  pure  socialism  or  despotism,  ieacli 
endeavoring  to  suppress  an  element  of  the  one 
living  and  indissoluble  Truth. 

This  is  not  fancy,  is  not  fine-spun  specula- 
tion,  or  cold  and  lifeless  abstraction,  but  the 
highest  theological  and  philosophical  truth, 
without  which  there  were  no  reason,  no  man, 
no  society ;  for  God  is  the  first  principle  of  all 
being,  all  existence,  all  science,  all  life,  and  it  is 
in  Him  that  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being.  God  is  at  the  beginning,  in  the  middle, 
and  at  the  end  of  all  things  —  the  universal 
principle,  medium,  and  end ;  and  no  truth  can 
be  denied  without  His  existence  being  directly 
or  indirectly  impugned.  In  a  deeper  sense 
than  is  commonly  understood  is  it  true  that 
nisi  Dominus  cedificaverit  domum^  in  vanum 
labaraverunt  qui  cedificant  earn.  The  English 
constitution  is  composed  of  contradictoiy  ele- 
ments, incapable  of  reconciliation,  and  each 
element  is  perpetually  struggling  with  the 
others  for  the  mastery.  For  a  long  time  the 
king  labored,  intrigued,  and  fought  to  free  him 
self  from  the  thraldom  in  which  he  was  held 
by  the  feudal  barons;  in  1688  the  aristocracy 
and  people  united  and  humbled  the  crown ;  and 
now  the  people  are  at  work  seeking  to  sap  both 
the  crown  and  the  nobles.     The  state  is  consti- 


DESTINY— POLITICAL  AND   RELIGIOUS.  403 

tuted  to  nobody's  satisfaction ;  and  though  all 
may  unite  in  boasting  its  excellences,  all  are  at 
work  trying  to  alter  or  amend  it.  The  work 
of  constitutino;  the  state  with  the  Enirlish  is 
ever  beginning,  never  ending.  Hence  the  eter- 
nal clamor  for  parliamentary  reform. 

Great  Britain  and  other  European  states  may 
sweep  away  all  that  remains  of  feudalism,  in- 
clude the  whole  territorial  people  with  the  equal 
rights  of  all  in  the  state  or  political  people,  con- 
cede to  birth  and  wealth  no  political  rights,  but 
they  will  by  so  doing  only  establish  either  impe- 
rial centralism,  as  has  been  done  in  France,  or 
democratic  centralism,  clamored  for,  conspired 
for,  and  fought  for  by  the  revolutionists  of  Eu- 
rope. The  special  merit  of  the  American  system 
is  not  in  its  democracy  alone,  as  too  many  at 
home  and  abroad  imagine  ;  but  along  with  its 
democracy  in  the  division  of  the  powers  of 
government,  between  a  General  government  and 
particular  State  governments,  which  are  not  an- 
tagonistic governments,  for  they  act  on  different 
matters,  and  neither  is  nor  can  be  subordinated 
to  the  other. 

Now,  this  division  of  power,  which  decen- 
tralizes the  government  without  creating  mu- 
tually hostile  forces,  can  hardly  be  introduced 
into   any   European  state.      There   may  be  a 


404  THE  4-MERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

union  of  states  in  Great  Britain,  in  Germany, 
in  Italy,  perhaps  in  Spain,  and  Austria  is  labor- 
ing hard  to  effect  it  in  her  heterogeneous  em- 
pire ;  but  the  union  possible  in  any  of  them  is  that 
of  a  Bund  or  confederation,  like   the  Swiss  or 
German  Bund,  similar  to  what  the  secessionists- 
in  the  United  States  so  recently  attempted  and 
have  so  signally  failed  to  establish.     An  intel- 
ligent Confederate  officer  remarked  that  their 
Confederacy  had  not  been  in  operation  three 
months  before  it  became  evident  that  the  prin- 
ciple on  which  it  was  founded,  if  not  rejected, 
would  insure  its  defeat.     It  was  that  principle 
of  State  sovereignty,  for  which  the  States  se- 
ceded, more  than  the  superior  resources  and 
numbers  of  the  Government,  that  caused  the 
collapse   of    the  Confederacy.      The   numbers 
were  relatively  about  equal,  and  the  military 
resources  of  the  Confederacy  were  relatively  not 
much  inferior  to  those  of  the  Government.     So 
at  least  the  Confederate  leaders  thought,  and 
they  knew  the  material  resources  of  the  Govern- 
ment as  well  as  their  own,  and  had  calculated 
them  with  as  much  care  and  accuracy  as  any  men 
could.     Foi-eign  powers  also,  friendly  as  well 
as  unfriendly,  felt  certain  that  the  secessionists 
would  gain  their  independence,  and  so  did  a 
large  part  of  the  people  even  of  the  lo3''al  States- 


DESTINY— POLITICAL  AND  RELIGIOUS.  406 

The  failure  is  due  to  the  disintegrating  princi- 
ple of  State  sovereignty,  the  very  principle  of 
the  Confederacy.  The  war  has  proved  that 
united  states  are,  other  things  being  equal,  au 
overmatch  for  confederated  states. 

The  European  states  must  unite  either  as 
equals  or  as  unequals.  As  equals,  the  union  can 
be  only  a  confederacy,  a  sort  of  Zollverein,  in 
which  each  state  retains  its  individual  sover- 
eignty ;  if  as  unequals,  then  some  one  among 
them  will  aspire  to  the  hegemony,  and  you 
have  over  again  the  Athenian  Confederation, 
formed  at  the  conclusion  of  the  Persian  war,  and 
its  fate.  A  union  like  the  American  cannot  be 
created  by  a  compact,  or  by  the  exercise  of  su- 
preme power.  The  Emperor  of  the  French 
cannot  erect  the  several  Departments  of  France 
into  states,  and  divide  the  powers  of  govern- 
ment  between  them  as  individual  and  as 
united  states.  They  would  necessarily  hold 
from  the  imperial  government,  which,  though 
it  might  exercise  a  large  part  of  its  functions 
through  them,  would  remain,  as  now,  the  supreme 
central  government,  from  which  all  government- 
al powers  emanate,  as  our  President  is  apparent, 
iy  attempting,  in  his  reconstruction  policy,  to 
make  the  government  of  the  United  States.  The 
elements  of  a  state  constituted  like  the  American 


406  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

do  not  exist  in  any  European  nation,  nor  in  the 
constitution  of  European  society ;  and  the 
American  constitution  would  have  been  im- 
practicable even  here  had  not  Providence  so  or» 
dered  it  that  the  nation  was  born  with  it,  and 
has  never  known  any  other. 

Rome  recog^nized  the  necessity  of  the  federal 
principle,  and  applied  it  in  the  best  way  she- 
could.  At  first  it  was  a  single  tribe  or  people  dis- 
tributed into  distinct  gentes  or  houses ;  after  the- 
Sabine  war,  a  second  tribe  was  added  on  terms- 
of  equality,  and  the  state  was  dual,  composed 
of  two  tribes,  the  Ramnes  and  the  Tities  or 
Quirites,  and,  afterward,  in  the  time  of  Tullu» 
Hostilius,  were  added  the  Lucertes  or  Luceres^ 
making  the  division  into  three  ruling  tribes^ 
each  divided  into  one  hundred  houses  or  gentes. 
Each  house  in  each  tribe  was  represented  by  its 
chief  or  decurion  in  the  senate,  making  the  num- 
ber of  senators  exactly  three  hundred,  at  which 
number  the  senate  was  fixed.  Subsequently  was. 
added,  by  Ancus,  the  plebs,  who  remained  with- 
out authority  or  share  in  the  government  of  the 
city  of  Rome  itself,  though  they  might  as- 
pire to  the  first  rank  in  the  allied  cities.  The- 
division  into  tribes,  and  the  division  of  the 
tribes  into  gentes  or  houses,  and  the  vote  in  the 
state  by  tribes,  and  in  the  tribes  by  houses,  e£- 


DESTINY— POLITICAL  AND  RELIGIOUS.  407 

fectually  excluded  democratic  centralism ;  but 
the  division  was  not  a  division  of  the  powers 
of  government  between  two  co-ordinate  gov- 
ernments, for  the  senate  had  supreme  control, 
like  the  British  parliament,  over  all  matters, 
general  and  particular. 

The  establishment,  after  the  secession  of  the 
plebs,  of  the  tribunitial  veto,  which  gave  the 
plebeians  a  negative  power  in  the  state,  there 
was  an  incipient  division  of  the  powers  of  gov- 
ernment ;  but  only  a  division  between  the  posi- 
tive and  negative  powers,  not  between  the  gen- 
eral and  the  particular.  The  power  accorded  to 
the  plebs,  or  commons,  as  Mebuhr  calls  them — 
who  is,  perhaps,  too  fond  of  explaining  the  early 
constitution  of  Rome  by  analogies  borrowed 
from  feudalism,  and  especially  fi'om  the  consti- 
tution of  his  native  Ditmarsch — was  simply  an 
obstructive  power;  and  when  it,  by  development, 
became  a  positive  power,  it  absorbed  all  the 
powers  of  government,  and  created  the  Empire. 

There  was,  indeed,  a  nearer  approach  to  the 
division  of  powers  in  the  American  system, 
between  imperial  Rome  and  her  allied  or  con- 
federated municipalities.  These  municipalities, 
modelled  chiefly  after  that  of  Rome,  were  elec- 
tive, and  had  the  management  of  their  own  local 
affairs ;  but  their  local  powers  were  not  co-ordi- 


408  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

nate  in  their  own  sphere  with  those  exercised 
by  the  Roman  municipality,  but  subordinate 
and  dependent.  The  senate  had  the  supreme 
power  over  them,  and  they  held  their  rights 
subject  to  its  will.  They  were  formally,  or 
virtually,  subjugated  states,  to  which  the  Roman 
senate,  and  afterward  the  Roman  emperors, 
left  the  form  of  the  state  and  the  mere  shadow 
of  freedom.  Rome  owed  much  to  her  affecting 
to  treat  them  as  allies  rather  than  as  subjects, 
and  at  first  these  municipal  organizations  secured 
the  progress  of  civilization  in  the  provinces; 
but  at  a  later  period,  under  the  emperors,  they 
served  only  the  impei'ial  treasury,  and  were 
crushed  by  the  taxes  imposed  and  the  contribu- 
tions levied  on  them  by  the  fiscal  agents  of  the 
empire.  So  heavy  were  the  fiscal  burdens  im- 
posed on  the  burgesses,  if  the  term  may  be 
used,  that  it  needed  an  imperial  edict  to  compel 
them  to  enter  the  municipal  government ;  and 
it  became,  under  the  later  emperors,  no  uncom- 
mon thinsr  for  free  citizens  to  sell  themselves 
into  slavery,  to  escape  the  fiscal  burdens  im- 
posed. There  are  actually  imperial  edicts  ex- 
tant forbidding  freemen  to  sell  themselves  as 
slaves.  Thus  ended  the  Roman  federative  sys- 
tem, and  it  is  difficult  to  discover  in  Europe 
the  elements  of  a  federative  system  that  could 
have  a  more  favorable  result. 


DiiSTIXY— POLITICAL  AND  RELIGIOUS.  409 

Now,  the  political  destiny  or  mission  of  the 
United  States  is,  in  common  with  the  European 
nations,  to  eliminate  the  barbaric  elements  re- 
tained by  the  Roman  constitution,  and  specially 
to  realize  that  philosophical  division  of  the 
powers  of  government  which  distinguish  it  from 
both  imperial  and  democratic  centralism  on  the 
one  hand,  and,  on  the  other,  from  the  checks  and 
balances  or  organized  antagonisms 'which  seek  to 
preserve  liberty  by  obstructing  the  exercise  of 
power.  No  greater  problem  in  statesmanship 
remains  to  be  solved,  and  no  greater  contribution 
to  civilization  to  be  made.  Nowhere  else  than  in 
this  New  World,  and  in  this  New  World  only 
in  the  United  States,  can  this  problem  be  solved, 
■or  this  contribution  be  made,  and  what  the 
Graeco-Roman  republic  began  be  completed. 

But  the  United  States  have  a  religious  as 
well  as  a  political  destiny,  for  religion  and 
politics  go  together.  Church  and  state,  as  gov- 
ernments, are  separate  indeed,  but  the  princi- 
pies  on  which  the  state  is  founded  have  their 
origin  and  ground  in  the  spiritual  order — in 
the  principles  revealed  or  affirmed  by  religion — 
and  are  inseparable  from  them.  There  is  no 
state  without  God,  any  more  than  there  is  a 
church  without  Christ  or  the  Incarnation.  An 
atheist  may  be  a  politician,  but  if  there  were 

18 


410  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

no  God  tbere  could  be  no  politics.  Theological 
principles  are  the  basis  of  political  principles- 
The  created  universe  is  a  dialectic  whole,  dis> 
tinct  but  inseparable  from  its  Creator,  and  all 
its  parts  cohere  and  are  essential  to  one  an- 
other. All  has  its  origin  and  prototype  in  the 
Triune  God,  and  throughout  expresses  unity  in 
triplicity  and  triplicity  in  unity,  without  whicK 
there  is  no  real  being  and  no  actual  or  possible- 
life.  Every  thing  has  its  principle,  medium,  and 
end.  Natural  society  is  initial,  civil  govern- 
ment is  medial,  the  church  is  teleological,  but 
the  three  are  only  distinctions  in  one  indissolu- 
ble whole. 

Man,  as  we  have  seen,  lives  by  communion, 
with  God  through  the  Divine  creative  act,  and 
is  perfected  or  completed  only  through  the 
Incarnation,  in  Christ,  the  Word  made  flesh- 
True,  he  communes  with  God  through  his  kind,, 
and  through  external  nature,  society  in  which. 
he  is  born  and  reared,  and  property  through; 
which  he  derives  sustenance  for  his  body ;  but 
these  are  only  media  of  his  communion  with 
God,  the  source  of  life — not  either  the  begin 
ning  or  the  end  of  his  communion.  They  have 
no  life  in  themselves,  since  their  being  is  in 
God,  and,  of  themselves,  can  impart  none.  They 
ar*'  in  the  order  of  second  causes,  and  second 


DESTINY— POLITICAL  AND  RELIGIOUS.  411 

causes,  without  the  first  cause,  are  nought. 
Communion  which  stops  with  them,  whicb 
takes  them  as  the  principle  and  end,  instead  of 
media,  as  thev  are,  is  the  communion  of  deaths 
not  of  life.  As  religion  includes  all  that  re- 
lates to  communion  with  God,  it  must  in  some- 
form  be  inseparable  from  every  living  act  of 
man,  both  individually  and  socially  paud,  in  the- 
long  run,  men  must  conform  either  their  poli- 
tics to  their  religion  or  their  religion  to  their 
politics.  Christianity  is  constantly  at  worky. 
moulding  political  society  in  its  own  image  and 
likeness,  and  every  political  system  struggles  to- 
harmonize  Christianity  with  itself.  If,  then,, 
the  United  States  have  a  political  destiny,  they 
have  a  religious  destiny  inseparable  from  it. 

The  political  destiny  of  the  United  States  is- 
to  conform  the  state  to  the  order  of  reality,  or^ 
so  to  speak,  to  the  Divine  Idea  in  creation. 
Their  religious  destiny  is  to  render  practicable- 
and  to  realize  the  normal  relations  between 
church  and  state,  religion  and  politics,  as  con- 
creted in  the  life  of  the  nation. 

In  politics,  the  United  States  are  not  realizing^ 
a  political  theory  of  any  sort  whatever.  They,, 
on  the  contrary,  are  successfully  refuting  all 
political  theories,  making  away  with  them,, 
and  establishing  the  state — not  on  a  theory,  nofe 


412  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

on  an  ai"tificial  basis  or  a  foundation  laid  by 
liilman  reason  or  will,  but  on  reality,  the  eter- 
nal and  immutable  principles  in  relation  to 
which  man  is  created.  They  are  doing  the 
same  in  regard  to  religious  theories.  Religion 
is  not  a  theory,  a  .subjective  view,  an  opin- 
ion, but  is,  objectively,  at  once  a  principle,  a 
law,  and  a  fact,  and,  subjectively,  it  is,  by  the 
the  aid  of  God's  grace,  practical  conformity  to 
what  is  universally  true  and  real.  The  United 
States,  in  fulfilment  of  their  destiny,  are  making 
as  sad  havoc  with  religious  theories  as  with  po- 
litical theories,  and  are  pressing  on  with  irre- 
:8istible  force  to  the  real  or  the  Divine  order 
which  is  expressed  in  the  Christian  myste- 
ries, which  exists  independent  of  man's  under- 
standing and  will,  and  which  man  can  neither 
make  nor  unmake. 

The  religious  destiny  of  the  United  States 
is  not  to  create  a  new  religion  nor  to  found  a 
new  church.  All  real  religion  is  catholic,  and  is 
neither  new  nor  old,  but  is  always  and  every, 
where  true.  Even  our  Lord  came  neither  to 
found  a  new  church  nor  to  create  a  new  religion, 
but  to  do  the  things  which  had  been  foretold, 
and  to  fulfil  in  time  what  had  been  determined 
in  eternity.  God  has  himself  founded  the 
«hurch  on  catholic  principles,  or  principles  al- 


DESTINY— POLITICAL  AND  RELIGIOUS.  41^ 

ways  and  everywhere  real  principles.  Hi& 
churcli  is  necessarily  catholic,  because  founded 
on  catholic  dogmas,  and  the  dogmas  are  cath- 
olic, because  they  are  universal  and  immuta- 
ble principles,  having  their  origin  and  ground 
in  the  Divine  Being  Himself,  or  in  the  crea- 
tive act  by  which  He  produces  and  sustains 
all  things.  Founded  on  universal  and  immu- 
table principles,  the  church  can  never  grow 
old  or  obsolete,  but  is  the  church  for  all  times 
and  places,  for  all  ranks  and  conditions  of 
men.  Man  cannot  change  either  the  church 
or  the  dogmas  of  faith,  for  they  are  founded 
in  the  highest  reality,  which  is  above  him^ 
over  him,  and  independent  of  him.  Keligion 
is  above  and  independent  of  the  state,  and  the 
state  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  church  or  her 
dogmas,  but  to  accept  and  conform  to  them  as 
it  does  to  any  of  the  facts  or  principles  of 
science,  to  a  mathematical  truth,  or  to  a  physi- 
cal law. 

But  while  the  church,  with  her  essential  con- 
stitution, and  her  dogmas  are  founded  in  the 
Divine  order,  and  are  catholic  and  unalterable, 
the  relations  between  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical 
authorities  may  be  changed  or  modified  by  the 
changes  of  time  and  place.  These  relations 
have  not  been  always  the  same,  bui  have  dif- 


»414  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

-fered  in  different  ages  and  countries.  Dui-ing 
tlie  first  three  centuries  of  our  era  the  church 
had  no  legal  status,  and  was  either  connived  at 
<or  persecuted  by  the  state.  Under  the  Chris- 
'tian  emperors  she  was  recognized  by  the  civil 
law;  her  prelates  had  exclusive  jurisdiction  in 
mixed  civil  and  ecclesiastical  questions,  and 
were  made,  in  some  sense,  civil  magistrates,  and 
paid  as  such  by  the  empire.  Under  feudalism, 
the  prelates  received  investiture  as  princes  and 
barons,  and  formed  alone,  or  in  connection  with 
tlie  temporal  lords,  an  estate  in  the  kingdom. 
The  Pope  became  a  temporal  prince  and  suze- 
rain, at  one  time,  of  a  large  part  of  Europe,  and 
exercised  the  arbitratorship  in  all  grave  ques- 
tions between  Christian  sovereigns  themselves, 
and  between  them  and  their  subjects.  Since 
the  downfall  of  feudalism  and  the  establish- 
ment of  modern  centralized  monarchy,  the 
church  has  been  robbed  of  the  greater  part 
of  her  temporal  possessions,  and  deprived,  in 
most  countries,  of  all  civil  functions,  and 
treated  by  the  state  either  as  an  enemy  or  as  a 
slave. 

In  all  the  sectarian  and  schismatic  states  of 
the  Old  World,  the  national  churcb  is  held  in 
•strict  subjection  to  the  civil  authority,  as  in 
•Great  Biitain  and  Eussia,  and  is  the  slave  of 


DESTINY— POLITICAL  AISD  RELIGIOUS.  415' 

the  state ;  in  the  other  states  of  Europe,  as 
France,  Austria,  Spain,  and  Italy,  she  is  treated 
with  distrust  by  the  civil  government,  and  al- 
lowed hardly  a  shadow  of  freedom  and  inde- 
pendence. In  France,  which  has  the  proud  title 
of  eldest  daughter  of  the  church.  Catholics,  as 
such,  are  not  freer  than  they  are  in  Turkey. 
All  religions  are  said  to  be  free,  and  all  are  free, 
except  the  religion  of  the  majority  of  French- 
men. The  emperor,  because  nominally  a  Catho- 
lic, takes  it  upon  himself  to  concede  the  church 
just  as  much  and  just  as  little  freedom  in  the 
■empire  as  he  judges  expedient  for  his  own  sec- 
ular interests.  In  Italy,  Spain,  Portugal,  Mex- 
ico, and  the  Central  and  South  American  states, 
the  policy  of  the  civil  authorities  is  the  same, 
or  worse.  It  may  be  safely  asserted  that,  ex- 
<iept  in  the  United  States,  the  church  is  either 
held  by  the  civil  power  in  subjection,  or  treated 
as  an  enemy.  The  relation  is  not  that  of  union 
and  harmony,  but  that  of  antagonism,  to  the 
grave  detriment  of  both  religion  and  civiliza- 
tion. 

It  is  impossible,  even  if  it  were  desirable,  to 
restore  the  mixture  of  civil  and  ecclesiastical 
governments  which  obtained  in  the  Middle 
Ages;  and  a  total  separation  of  church  and 
«tate,  oven  as  corporations,  would,  in  the  pres- 


416  THlL  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

ent  state  of  men's  minds  in  Europe,  be  con- 
strued, if  approved  by  the  cburch,  into  a  sanc- 
tion by  her  of  political  atheism,  or  the  right 
of  the  civil  power  to  govern  according  to  its 
own  will  and  pleasure  in  utter  disregard  of  the 
law  of  God,  the  moral  order^  or  the  immutable 
distinctions  between  right  and  wrong.  It  could 
only  favor  the  absolutism  ©f  the  state,  and  put 
the  temporal  in  the  place  of  the  spiiitual. 
Hence,  the  Holy  Father  includes  the  proposi 
tion  of  the  entire  separation  of  church  and  state 
in  the  Syllabus  of  Errors  condemned  in  his 
Encyclical,  dated  at  Kome,  December  8,  1864.. 
Neither  the  state  nor  the  people,  elsewhere  than 
in  the  United  States,  can  understand  practically 
such  separation  in  any  other  sense  than  th& 
complete  emancipation  of  our  entire  secular 
life  from  the  law  of  God,  or  the  Divine  order,, 
which  is  the  real  order.  It  is  not  the  union  of 
church  and  state — that  is,  the  union,  or  identity 
rather,  of  religious  and  political  principles — th'jt 
it  is  desirable  to  get  rid  of,  but  the  disunion  or 
antagonism  of  church  and  state.  But  this  is 
nowhere  possible  out  of  the  United  States ;  for 
nowhere  els»^  is  the  state  organized  on  catholic 
principles,  or  capable  of  acting,  when  acting 
from  its  own  constitution,  in  harmony  with  a 
I'eally   catholic  church,  or  the  religious  order 


DESTINY— POLITICAL  AND  RELIGIOUS.  417 

really  existing,  in  relation  to  wMcli  all  things 
ai'e  created  and  governed.  Nowhere  else  is  it 
practicable,  at  present,  to  maintain  between  the 
two  powers  their  normal  relations. 

But  what  is  not  practicable  in  the  Old 
World  is  perfectly  practicable  in  the  New. 
The  state  here  being  organized  in  accordance 
with  catholic  principles,  there  can  be  no  antag- 
onism between  it  and  the  church.  Though  op- 
erating in  different  spheres,  both  are,  in  their 
respective  spheres,  developing  and  applying  to 
practical  life  the  one  and  the  same  Divine  Idea. 
The  church  can  trust  the  state,  and  the  state 
can  trust  the  church.  Both  act  from  the  same 
principle  to  one  and  the  same  end.  Each  by 
its  own  constitution  co-operates  with,  aids,  and 
completes  the  other.  It  is  true  the  church  is 
not  formally  established  as  the  civil  law  of  the 
land,  nor  is  it  necessary  that  she  should  be ;  be- 
cause there  is  nothing  in  the  state  that  conflicts 
with  her  freedom  and  independence,  with  her 
dogmas  or  her  iiTeformable  canons.  The  need 
of  establishing  the  church  by  law,  and  protect- 
ing her  by  legal  pains  and  penalties,  as  is  still 
done  in  most  countries,  can  exist  only  in  a 
barbarous  or  semi-barbarous  state  of  society, 
where  the  state  is  not  organized  on  catholic 
principles,  or  the  civilization  is  based  on  false 

18* 


418  THE  AMERICAN  REPTTBLIC. 

principles,  and  in  its  development  tends  not  to 
the  real  or  Divine  order  of  things.  When  the 
state  is  constituted  in  harmony  witli  that  order, 
it  is  carried  onward  by  the  force  of  its  own 
internal  constitution  in  a  catholic  dii'ectioii, 
and  a  churcli  establishment,  or  what  is  called  a 
state  religion,  would  be  an  anomaly,  or  a  super- 
fluity. The  true  religion  is  in  the  heart  of  the 
state,  as  its  informing  principle  and  real  interior 
life.  The  external  establishmeat,  by  legal  en- 
actment of  the  churcli,  would  afford  her  no  ad- 
ditional protection,  add  nothing  to  her  power 
and  efficacy,  and  effect  nothing  for  faith  or  pie- 
ty— neither  of  which  can  be  forced,  because  both 
must,  from  their  nature,  be  free-will  offerings  to 
God. 

In  the  United  States,  false  religions  are  legally 
as  free  as  the  true  religion;  but.  all  false  reli- 
gions being  one-sided,  sophistical,  and  uncath- 
olic,  are  opposed  by  the  principles  of  the  state, 
Avhich  tend,  by  their  silent  but  effective  work- 
ings, to  eliminate  them.  The  American  state 
recognizes  only  the  catholic  religion.  It  eschews 
all  sectarianism,  and  none  of  the  sects  have 
been  able  to  get  their  peculiarities  incorporated 
into  its  constitution  or  its  laws.  The  state  con- 
forms to  what  each  holds  that  is  catholic,  that 
is  always  and  everywhere  religion ;  and  whatr 


DESTINY— POUTICAL  AND  RELIGIOUS.  419 

ever  is  not  catholic  it  leaves,  as  outside  of  its 
province,  to  live  or  die,  according  to  its  own  in- 
herent vitality  or  want  of  vitality.  The  state 
conscience  is  catholic,  not  sectarian ;  hence  it  is 
that  the  utmost  freedom  can  be  allowed  to  all 
religions,  the  false  as  well  as  the  true ;  for  the 
state,  being  catholic  in  its  constitution,  can 
never  suffer  the  adherents  of  the  false  to  oppress 
the  consciences  of  the  adherents  of  the  true. 
The  church  being  free,  and  the  state  harmo- 
nizing with  her,  catholicity  has,  in  the  freedom 
of  both,  all  the  protection  it  needs,  all  the  se- 
curity it  can  ask,  and  all  the  support  it  can,  in 
the  nature  of  the  case,  receive  from  external 
institutions,  or  from  social  and  political  organ- 
izations. 

This  freedom  may  not  be  universally  wise  or 
prudent,  for  all  nations  may  not  be  prepared 
for  it :  all  may  not  have  attained  their  majority. 
The  church,  as  well  as  the  state,  must  deal  with 
men  and  nations  as  they  are,  not  as  they  are  not. 
To  deal  with  a  child  as  with  an  adult,  or  with  a 
barbarous  nation  as  with  a  civilized  nation,  would 
be  only  acting  a  lie.  The  church  cannot  treat 
men  as  fi*ee  men  where  they  are  not  free  men,  nor 
appeal  to  reason  in  those  in  whom  reason  is  unde- 
veloped. She  must  adapt  her  discipline  to  the 
age,  condition,  and  culture  of  individuals,  and 


420  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

to  the  greater  or  less  progress  of  nations  iii 
civilization.  She  herself  retnains  always  the 
same  in  her  constitution,  her  authority,  and  her 
faith ;  but  varies  her  discipline  with  the  varia- 
tions  of  time  and  place.  Many  of  her  canons^ 
very  proper  and  necessary  in  one  age,  cease  to 
be  so  in  another,  and  many  which  are  needed 
in  the  Old  World  would  be  out  of  place  in  the 
New  World.  Under  the  American  system,  she 
can  deal  with  the  people  as  free  men,  and  trust 
them  as  freemen,  because  free  men  they  are» 
The  freeman  asks,  why  ?  and  the  reason  why 
must  be  given  him,  or  his  obedience  fails  to  be 
secured.  The  simple  reason  that  the  church 
commands  will  rarely  satisfy  him ;  he  would 
know  why  she  commands  this  or  that.  The 
full-grown  free  man  revolts  at  blind  obedience, 
and  he  resjards  all  obedience  as  in  some  meas- 
ure  blind  for  which  he  sees  only  an  extrinsic 
command.  Blind  obedience  even  to  the  au- 
thority of  the  church  cannot  be  expected  of* 
the  people  reared  under  the  American  system, 
not  because  they  are  filled  with  the  spirit  of 
disobedience,  but  because  they  insist  that  obe- 
dience shall  be  rationahile  obsequium^  an  act 
of  the  understanding,  not  of  the  will  or  the 
affections  alone.  They  are  trained  to  demand 
te  reason  for  the  command  given  them,  to  dis- 


DESTINY— POLITICAL  AND  REIilGIOUS.  421 

tinguisli  between  tlie  law  and  the  person  of 
the  magistrate.  They  can  obey  God,  but  not 
man,  and  they  must  see  that  the  command 
given  has  its  reason  in  the  Divine  order,  or  the 
intrinsic  catholic  reason  of  things,  or  they  will 
not  yield  it  a  full,  entire,  and  hearty  obedi- 
ence. The  reason  that  suffices  for  the  child 
does  not  suffice  for  the  adult,  and  the  reason 
that  suffices  for  barbarians  does  not  suffice 
for  civilized  men,  or  that  suffices  for  nations 
in  the  infancy  of  their  civilization  does  not 
suffice  for  them  in  its  maturity.  The  appeal 
to  external  authority  was  much  less  frequent 
under  the  Roman  Empire  than  in  the  barbarous 
ages  that  followed  its  downfall,  when  the 
church  became  mixed  up  with  the  state. 

This  trait  of  the  American  character  is  not 
uncatholic.  An  intelligent,  free,  willing  obe- 
dience, yielded  from  personal  conviction,  after 
seeing  its  reasonableness,  its  justice,  its  logic 
in  the  Divine  order — the  obedience  of  a  free 
man,  not  of  a  slave — is  far  more  consonant  to  the 
spirit  of  the  church,  and  far  more  acceptable  to 
•God,  than  simple,  blind  obedience ;  and  a  peo- 
ple capable  of  yielding  it  stand  far  higher  in 
the  scale  of  civilization  than  the  people  that 
•  must  be  governed  as  children  or  barbarians.  It 
is  possible  that  the  people  of  the   Old  World 


422  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

are  not  prepared  for  the  regimen  of  freedom  id 
religion  any  more  than  they  are  prepared  for 
freedom  in  politics  ;  for  they  have  been  trained 
only  to  obey  external  authority,  and  are  not 
accustomed  to  look  on  religion  as  having  its 
reason  in  the  real  order,  or  in  the  reason  of 
things.  They  understand  no  reason  for  obe- 
dience beyond  the  external  command,  and  do- 
not  believe  it  possible  to  give  or  to  understand 
the  reason  why  the  command  itself  is  given. 
They  regard  the  authority  of  the  church  as  a 
thing  apart,  and  see  no  way  by  which  faith  and 
reason  can  be  harmonized.  They  look  upon 
them  as  antagonistic  forces  rather  than  as  in- 
tegral elements  of  one  and  the  same  whole.  Con- 
cede them  the  regimen  of  freedom,  and  their 
religion  has  no  support  but  in  their  good-will, 
their  affections,  their  associations,  their  habits, 
and  their  prejudices.  It  has  no  root  in  their 
rational  convictions,  and  when  they  begin  to 
reason  they  begin  to  doubt.  This  is  not  the 
state  of  things  that  is  desirable,  but  it  can- 
not be  remedied  under  the  political  regime 
established  elsewhere  than  in  the  United 
States.  In  every  state  in  the  world,  except  the 
American,  the  civil  constitution  is  sophistical,, 
and  violates,  more  or  less,  the  logic  of  things  ; " 
and,  therefore,  in  no  one  of  them  can  the  peo- 


DESTINY— POLITICAL  AND  RELIGIOUS.  423 

pie  receive  a  thorouglily  dialectic  training,  or 
an  education  in  strict  conformity  to  the  real 
order.  Hence,  in  them  all,  the  church  is  more 
or  less  obstructed  in  her  operations,  and  pre- 
vented from  carrying  out  in  its  ftilness  her  own 
Divine  Idea.  She  does  the  best  she  can  in 
the  circumstances  and  with  the  materials  with 
which  she  is  supplied,  and  exerts  herself  con- 
tinually to  bring  individuals  and  nations  into 
harmony  with  her  Divine  law ;  but  still  her 
life  in  the  midst  of  the  nations  is  a  struo-gle,  a 
warfare. 

The  United  States  being  dialectically  consti- 
tuted, and  founded  on  real  catholic,  not  secta- 
rian or  sophistical  principles,  presents  none  of 
these  obstacles,  and  must,  in  their  progressive 
development  or  realization  of  their  political 
idea,  put  an  end  to  this  warfare,  in  so  far  as  a 
warfare  between  church  and  state,  and  leave 
the  church  in  her  normal  position  in  society,  in 
which  she  can,  without  let  or  hindrance,  exert 
her  free  spirit,  and  teach  and  govern  men  by 
the  Divine  law  as  free  men.  She  may  encounter 
unbelief,  misbelief,  ignorance,  and  indifference 
in  few,  or  in  many;  but  these,  deriving  no  sup- 
port from  the  state,  which  tends  constantly  to 
eliminate  them,  must  gradually  give  way  before 
her   invincible   logic,    her  divine   charity,  the 


424  THE  AMERICAN  EEPUBLIC. 

truth  and  reality  of  things,  and  the  intelligence, 
activity,  and  zeal  of  her  ministers.  The  Amer- 
ican people  are,  on  the  surface,  sectarians  or  in- 
differeutists;  but  they  are,  in  reality,  less  uncath- 
olic  than  the  people  of  any  other  country,  be- 
cause they  are,  in  their  intellectual  and  moral 
development,  nearer  to  the  real  order,  or,  in  the 
higher  and  broader  sense  of  the  word,  more 
truly  civilized.  The  multitude  of  sects  that 
obtain  may  excite  religious  compassion  for  those 
who  are  carried  away  by  them,  for  men  can  be 
saved  or  attain  to  their  eternal  destiny  only  by 
truth,  or  conformity  to  Him  who  said,  "  I  am 
the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life ;"  but  in  re- 
lation to  the  national  destiny  they  need  excite 
no  alarm,  no  uneasiness,  for  underlying  them  all 
is  more  or  less  of  catholic  truth,  and  the  vital 
forces  of  the  national  life  repel  them,  in  so  far 
as  they  are  sectarian  and  not  catholic,  as  sub- 
stances that  cannot  be  assimilated  to  the  na- 
tional life.  The  American  state  being  catholic 
in  its  organic  principles,  as  is  all  real  religioni 
and  the  church  being  free,  whatever  is  anti- 
catholic,  or  uncatholic,  is  without  any  support 
in  either,  and  having  none,  either  in  reality  or 
in  itself,  it  must  necessarily  fall  and  gradually 
disappear. 

The  sects  themselves  have  a  half  un  avowed 


DESTINY— POLITICAL  AND  RELIGIOUS.  425 

conviction  that  they  cannot  subsist  forever  as 
sects,  if  unsupported  by  the  civil  authority. 
They  are  free,  but  do  not  feel  safe  in  the  United 
States.  They  know  the  real  church  is  catholic, 
and  that  they  themselves  are  none  of  them 
catholic.  The  most  daring  among  them  even 
pretends  to  be  no  more  than  a  "  branch  "  of 
the  catholic  church.  They  know  that  only  the 
catholic  church  can  withstand  the  pressure  -of 
events  and  survive  the  shocks  of  time,  and 
hence  everywhere  their  movements  to  get  rid 
of  their  sectarianism  and  to  gain  a  catholic 
character.  They  hold  conventions  of  delegates 
from  the  whole  sectarian  world,  form  "  unions," 
"  alliances,"  and-  "  associations ;"  but,  unhap- 
pily for  their  success,  the  catholic  church  does 
not  originate  in  convention,  but  is  founded  by 
the  Word  made  flesh,  and  sustained  by  the  in- 
dwelling Holy  Ghost.  The  most  they  can  do, 
even  with  the  best  dispositions  in  the  world, 
is  to  create  a  confederation,  and  confederated 
sects  are  something  very  different  from  a  church 
inherently  one  and  catholic.  It  is  no  more  the 
catholic  church  than  the  late  Southern  Confed- 
eracy was  the  American  state.  The  sectarian 
combinations  may  do  some  harm,  may  injure 
many  souls,  and  retard,  for  a  time,  the  pri^gress 
tjf  civDization ;  but  in  a  state  organized  in  ao 


426  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

cordance  with  catholic  principles,  and  left  to 
themselves,  they  are  powerless  against  the  na- 
tional destiny,  and  must  soon  wither  and  die 
as  branches  severed  from  the  vine. 

Such  being  the  case,  no  sensible  Catholic  can 
imagine  that  the  church  needs  any  physical 
force  against  the  sects,  except  to  repel  actual 
violence,  and  protect  her  in  that  freedom  of 
speech  and  possession  which  is  the  right  of  all 
before  the  state.  What  are  called  religious  es- 
tablishments are  needed  only  where  either  the 
state  is  barbarous  or  the  religion  is  sectarian. 
Where  the  state,  in  its  intrinsic  constitution,  is 
in  accordance  mth  catholic  principles,  as  in  the 
United  States,  the  churcli  has  all  she  needs  or 
can  receive.  The  state  can  add  nothing  more 
to  her  power  or  her  security  in  her  moral  and 
spii'itual  warfare  with  sectarianism,  and  any 
attempt  to  give  her  more  would  only  weaken 
her  as  against  the  sects,  place  her  in  a  fake 
light,  partially  justify  their  hostility  to  her,  ren- 
der effective  their  declamations  against  her,, 
mix  her  up  unnecessarily  with  political  changes^ 
interests,  and  passions,  and  distract  the  atten- 
tion of  her  ministers  from  their  proper  work 
as  churchmen,  and  impose  on  them  the  duties 
of  politicians  and  statesmen.  Where  there  is 
nothing  in  the   state  hostile    to   the   church. 


DESTINY— POLITICAL  AND   RELIGIOUS.  42T 

where  she  is  tree  to  act  according  to  her  own 
constitution  and  laws,  and  exercise  her  own 
discipline  on  her  own  spiritual  subjects,  civil 
enactments  in  her  favor  or  against  the  sects 
may  embarrass  or  impede  her  operations,  but 
cannot  aid  her,  for  she  can  advance  no  farther 
than  she  wins  the  heart  and  convinces  the  un- 
derstanding. A  spiritual  work  can,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  be  effected  only  by  spiritual 
means.  The  church  wants  freedom  in  relation 
to  the  state — nothing  moi'e;  for  all  her  power 
comes  immediately  from  God,  without  any  in- 
tervention or  mediation  of  the  state. 

The  United  States,  constituted  in  accord- 
ance with  the  real  order  of  things,  and  founded 
on  principles  which  have  their  origin  and 
ground  in  the  principles  on  which  the  chufch 
herself  is  founded,  can  never  establish  any^ 
one  of  the  sects  as  the  religion  of  the  state, 
for  that  would  violate  their  political  consti- 
tution, and  array  all  the  other  sects,  as  well 
as  the  church  herself,  against  the  government. 
They  cannot  be  called  upon  to  establish  the- 
church  by  law,  because  she  is  already  in  their 
constitution  as  far  as  the  state  has  in  itself 
any  relation  with  religion,  and  because  to- 
establish  her  in  any  other  sense  would  be  to- 
make  her  one  of  the  civil  institutions  of  the 


428  THE  AMERICAK-  REPUBLIC. 

land,  and  to  biing  her  under  tlie  control  of  the 
state,  which  were  equally  against  her  interest 
and  her  nature. 

The  religious  mission  of  the  United  States  is 
not  then  to  establish  the  church  by  external  law, 
or  to  protect  her  by  legal  disabilities,  pains,  and. 
penalties  against  the  sects,  however  uncatholic 
they  may  be ;  but  to  maintain  catholic  freedom, 
neither  absorbing  the  state  in  the  church  nor  the 
church  in  the  state,  but  leaving  each  to  move 
freely,  according  to  its  own  nature,  in  the  sphere 
assigned  it  in  the  eternal  order  of  things.  Their 
mission  separates  church  and  state  as  external 
governing  bodies,  but  unites  them  in  the  interior 
principles  from  which  each  derives  its  vitality 
and  force.  Their  union  is  in  the  intrinsic  unity 
of  principle,  and  in  the  fact  that,  though  moving 
in  different  spheres,  each  obeys  one  and  the 
same  Divine  law.  With  this  the  Catholic,  who 
knows  what  Catholicity  means,  is  of  course  sat- 
isfied, for  it  gives  the  church  all  the  advantage 
over  the  sects  of  the  real  over  the  unreal ;  and 
with  this  the  sects  have  no  right  to  be  dissatis- 
fied, for  it  subjects  them  to  no  disadvantage  not 
inherent  in  sectarianism  itself  in  presence  of 
Catholicity,  and  without  any  support  from  the 
civil  authority. 

The  effect  of  this  mission  of  our  country  fully 


DESTIXT— POLITICAL  AND   RELIGIOUS.  42^ 

realized,  would  be  to  harmonize  church  and 
state,  religion  and  politics,  not  by  absorbing 
either  in  the  other,  or  by  obliterating  the  natural 
distinction  between  them,  but  by  conforming 
both  to  the  real  or  Divine  order,  which  is  su- 
preme  and  immutable.  It  places  the  two  pow- 
ers in  their  normal  relation,  which  has  hitherto 
never  been  done,  because  hitherto  there  never 
has  been  a  state  normally  constituted.  The 
nearest  approach  made  to  the  realization  of  the 
proper  relations  of  church  and  state,  prior  to 
the  birth  of  the  American  Kepublic,  was  in  the 
Roman  Empire  under  the  Christian  emperors ; 
but  the  state  had  been  perverted  by  paganism, 
and  the  emperors,  inheriting  the  old  pontifical 
power,  could  never  be  made  to  understand 
their  own  incompetency  in  spirituals,  and  per- 
sisted to  the  last  in  treating  the  church  as  a 
civil  institution  under  their  supervision  and  con- 
trol, as  does  the  Emperor  of  the  French  in 
France,  even  yet.  In  the  Middle  Ages  the  state 
was  so  barbarously  constituted  that  the  church 
was  obliged  to  supervise  its  administration, 
to  mix  herself  up  with  the  civil  government, 
in  order  to  infuse  some  intelligence  into  civil 
matters,  and  to  preserve  her  own  rightful  free* 
dom  and  independence.  When  the  states  broke 
away  from  feudalism,  they  revived  the  Koman 


430  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

-constitution,  and  claimed  the  authority  in  ec- 
clesiastical matters  that  had  been  exercised  by 
the  Roman  Caesars,  and  the  states  that  adopted 
a  sectarian  religion  gave  the  sect  adopted  a  civil 
establishment,  and  subjected  it  to  the  civil  gov- 
ernment, to  which  the  sect  not  unwillingly  con- 
sented, on  condition  that  the  civil  authority  ex- 
cluded the  church  and  all  other  sects,  and  made 
it  the  exclusive  religion  of  the  state,  as  in  Eng- 
land, Scotland,  Sweden,  Denmark,  Russia,  and 
the  states  of  Northern  Germany.  Even  yet  the 
normal  I'elations  of  church  and  state  are  nowhere 
practicable  in  the  Old  "World  ;  for  everywhere 
either  the  state  is  more  or  less  barbaric  in  its 
constitution,  or  the  religion  is  sectarian,  and  the 
church  as  well  as  civilization  is  obliged  to 
struggle  with  antagonistic  forces,  for  self  preser- 
vation. 

There  are  formidable  parties  all  over  Europe 
at  work  to  introduce  what  they  take  to  be  the 
American  system ;  but  constitutions  are  gener- 
ated, not  made — Providential,  not  conventional. 
Statesmen  can  only  develop  what  is  in  the  ex- 
isting constitutions  of  their  respective  coun- 
tries, and  no  European  constitution  contains  all 
the  elements  of  the  American.  European  lib- 
erals mistake  the  American  system,  and,  were 
ihey  to  succeed  in  their  ^fForts,  would   not  in- 


DESTINY POLITICAL  AiS'D  EELIGIOUS.  431 

troJuce  it,  but  something  more  hostile  to  it 
than  the  governments  and  institutions  they  are 
wari'ing  against.  They  start  from  narrow,  sec- 
tai'ian,  or  infidel  premises,  and  seek  not  freedom 
of  worship,  but  freedom  of  denial.  They  sup- 
press the  freedom  of  religion  as  the  means  of 
securing  what  they  call  religious  liberty — ima- 
gine that  they  secure  freedom  of  thought  by 
extinguishing  the  light  without  which  no 
thought  is  possible,  and  advance  civilization  by 
undermining  its  foundation.  The  condemna- 
tion of  their  views  and  movements  by  the  Holy 
Father  in  the  Encyclical,  which  has  excited  so 
much  hostility,  may  seem  to  supei-ficial  and 
unthinking  Americans  even,  as  a  condemnation 
of  our  American  system — indeed,  as  the  con- 
demnation of  modern  science,  intelligence,  and 
civilization  itself;  but  whoever  looks  below 
the  surface,  has  some  insight  into  the  course  o^ 
events,  understands  the  propositions  and  rhov<>. 
ments  censured,  and  the  sense  in  which  they 
are  censured,  is  well  assured  that  the  Holy 
Father  has  simply  exercised  his  pastoral  and 
teaching  authority  to  save  religion,  society, 
science,  and  civilization  from  utter  corruption 
or  destruction.  The  opinions,  tendencies,  and 
movements,  directly  or  by  implication  censured, 
are  the  effect  of  narrow  and   superficial  think 


432  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

ing,  of  partial  and  one-sided  views,  and  are  secta- 
rian, sophistical,  and  hostile  to  all  real  progress,, 
and  tend,  as  far  as  they  go,  to  throw  society- 
back  into  the  barbarism  from  which,  after  centu- 
ries of  toil  and  struggle,  it  is  just  beginning  to 
emerge.  The  Holy  Father  has  condemned  noth- 
ing that  real  philosophy,  real  science  does  not 
also  condemn  ;  nothing,  in  fact,  that  is  not  at  war 
with  the  American  system  itself.  For  the  mass 
of  the  people,  it  were  desirable  that  fuller  expla- 
nations should  be  given  of  the  sense  in  which 
the  various  propositions  censured  are  con- 
demned, for  some  of  them  are  not,  in  every  sense, 
false;  but  the  explanations  needed  were  expected 
by  the  Holy  Father  to  be  given  by  the  bishops 
and  prelates,  to  whom,  not  to  the  people,  save 
through  them,  the  Encyclical  was  addressed. 
Little  is  to  be  hoped,  and  much  is  to  be  feared, 
for  liberty,  science,  and  civilization  from  Euro- 
pean Liberalism,  which  has  no  real  affinity 
with  American  territorial  democracy  and  real 
civil  and  religious  freedom.  But  God  and  real- 
ity are  present  in  the  Old  World  as  well  as- 
in  the  New,  and  it  will  never  do  to  restrict 
their  power  or  freedom. 

Whether  the  American  people  will  prove 
faithful  to  their  mission,  and  realize  their  des- 
tiny, or  not,  is  known  only  to  Him  from  whom 


DKRTINY— POLITICAL  AND  RELiaiOUS.  433 

nothing  is  hidden.  Providence  is  free,  and 
leaves  always  a  space  for  human  free-will.  The 
American  people  can  fail,  and  will  fail  if  they 
neglect  the  appointed  means  and  conditions  of 
success ;  but  there  is  nothing  in  their  present 
state  or  in  their  past  history  to  render  theii* 
failure  probable.  They  have  in  their  internal 
constitution  what  Rome  wanted,  and  they  are 
in  no  danger  of  being  crushed  by  exterior  bar- 
barism. Their  success  as  feeble  colonies  of 
Great  Britain  in  achieving  their  national  inde- 
pendence, and  especially  in  maintaining,  un- 
aided, and  against  the  real  hostility  of  Great 
Britain  and  France,  their  national  unity  and  in- 
tegrity against  a  rebellion  which,  probably,  no 
other  people  could  have  survived,  gives  reason- 
able assurance  for  their  future.  The  leaders  of  the 
rebellion,  than  whom  none  better  knew  or  more 
nicely  calculated  the  strength  and  resources  of 
the  Union,  counted  with  certainty  on  success, 
and  the  ablest,  the  most  experienced,  and  best- 
informed  statesmen  of  the  Old  "World  felt  sure 
that  the  Republic  was  gone,  and  spoke  of  it  as 
the  late  United  States.  Not  a  few,  even  in  the 
loyal  States,  who  had  no  sympathy  with  the 
rebellion,  believed  it  idle  to  think  of  suppress- 
ing it  by  force,  and  advised  peace  on  the  best 
terms  that  could  be  obtained.     But  Tliumfuit 

29 


434  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

was  chanted  too  soon;  the  American  people 
were  equal  to  the  emergency,  and  falsified  the 
calculations  and  predictions  of  their  enemies, 
and  surpassed  the  expectations  of  their  friends. 
The  attitude  of  the  real  American  people  du- 
ring the  fearful  struggle  affords  additional  confi- 
dence in  their  destiny.  With  larger  armies  on  foot 
than  Napoleon  ever  commanded,  with  their  line 
of  battle  stretching  from  ocean  to  ocean,  across 
the  whole  breadth  of  the  continent,  they  never, 
during  four  long  years  of  alternate  victories  and 
defeats^ — and  both  unprecedentedly  bloody — 
for  a  moment  lost  their  equanimity,  or  appeared 
less  calm,  collected,  tranquil,  than  in  the  ordi- 
nary times  of  peace.  They  not  for  a  moment 
interrupted  their  ordinary  routine  of  business 
or  pleasure,  or  seemed  conscious  of  being  en- 
gaged in  any  serious  struggle  which  required 
an  effort.  There  was  no  hurry,  no  bustle,  no 
excitement,  no  fear,  no  misgiving.  They  seem- 
ed to  regard  the  war  as  a  mere  bagatelle,  not 
worth  being  in  earnest  about.  The  on-looker 
was  almost  angry  with  their  apparent  indiffer- 
ence, apparent  insensibility,  and  doubted  if 
they  moved  at  all.  Yet  move  they  did :  guided 
by  an  unerring  instinct,  they  moved  quietly  on 
with  an  elemental  force,  in  spite  of  a  timid  and 
hesitating  administration,  in  spite  of  inexpe* 


DESTINY— POLITICAL  AND  RELIGIOUS.  435 

rienced,  over-caiitious,  incompetent,  or  blunder- 
ing military  commanders,  whom  they  gently 
brushed  aside,  and  desisted  not  till  their  object 
was  gained,  and  they  saw  the  flag  of  the  Union 
floating  anew  in  the  breeze  from  the  capitol  of 
every  State  that  dared  secede.  No  man  could 
contemplate  them  without  feeling  that  there 
was  in  them  a  latent  power  vastly  superior  to 
any  which  they  judged  it  necessary  to  put 
forth.  Their  success  proves  to  all  that  what, 
prior  to  the  war,  was  treated  as  American  arro- 
gance or  self  conceit,  was  only  the  outspoken 
confidence  in  their  destiny  as  a  Providential 
people,  conscious  that  to  them  is  reserved  the 
hegemony  of  the  world. 

Count  de  Maistre  predicted  early  in  the  cen- 
tury the  failure  of  the  United  States,  because 
they  have  no  proper  name ;  but  his  prediction 
assumed  what  is  not  the  fact.  The  United  States 
have  a  proper  name  by  which  all  the  world  knows 
and  calls  them.  The  proper  name  of  the  country 
is  America :  that  of  the  people  is  Americans. 
Speak  of  Americans  simply,  and  nobody  under- 
Btands  you  to  mean  the  people  of  Canada,  Mexi- 
co, Brazil,  Peru,  Chile,  Paraguay,  but  everybody 
understands  you  to  mean  the  people  of  the 
United  States.  The  fact  is  signiticanti,  and 
foretells  for  the  people  of  the  United  States  a 


436  THE  AMERICAN  REPITBLTC. 

continental  destiny,  as  is  also  foreshadowed  in 
the  so-called  "  Monroe  doctrine,"  which  France, 
during  our  domestic  troubles,  was  permitted, 
on  condition  of  not  intervening  in  our  civil 
war  in  favor  of  the  rebellion,  to  violate. 

'Inhere  was  no  statesmanship  in  proclaiming 
the  "  Monroe  doctrine,"  for  the  statesman  keeps 
always,  as  far  as  possible,  his  government  free 
to  act  according  to  the  exigencies  of  the  case 
when  it  comes  up,  unembarrassed  by  previous 
declarations  of  principles.      Yet  the  doctrine 
only  expresses  the   destiny   of  the  American 
people,  and  which  nothing  but  their  own  fault 
can  prevent  them  from  realizing  in  its   own 
good  time.     Napoleon  will  not  succeed  in  his 
Mexican  policy,  and  Mexico  will  add  some  fif- 
teen or  twenty  new  States  to  the  American 
Union  as  soon  as  it  is  clearly  for  the  interests 
of  all  parties  that  it  should  be  done,  and  it  can 
be  done  by  mutual  consent,  without  war  or 
violence.    The  Union  will  fight  to  maintain  the 
integrity  of  her  domain  and  the  supremacy  of 
her  laws  within  it,  but  she  can  never,  consist- 
ently with  her  principles  or  her  interests,  enter 
upon  a  career  of  war  and  conquest.     Her  sys- 
tem is  violated,  endangered,  not  extended,  by 
subjugating  her  neighbors,  for  subjugation  and 
liberty  go  not  together.     Annexation,  when  it 


DESTINY— POLITICAL  AND  RELIGIOUS.  437 

takes  place,  must  be  on  terms  of  perfect  equal- 
ity, and  by  the  free  act  of  the  state  annexed. 
The  Union  can  admit  of  no  inequality  of  rights 
and  franchises  between  the  States  of  which  it 
is  composed.  The  Canadian  Provinces  and  the 
Mexican  and  Central  American  States,  when 
annexed,  must  be  as  free  as  the  original  States 
of  the  Union,  sharing  alike  in  the  power  and 
the  protection  of  the  Republic — alike  in  its 
authority,  its  freedom,  its  grandeur,  and  its 
glory,  as  one  free,  independent,  self-governing 
people.  They  may  gain  much,  but  must  lose 
nothing  by  annexation. 

The  Emperor  Napoleon  and  his  very  respect- 
able j9ro^<^^^,  Maximilian,  an  able  man  and  a 
liberal-minded  prince,  can  change  nothing  in  the 
destiny  of  the  United  States,  or  of  Mexico  her- 
self; no  imperial  government  can  be  perma- 
nent beside  the  American  Republic,  no  longer 
liable,  since  the  abolition  of  slavery,  to  be  dis- 
tracted by  sectional  dissensions.  The  States 
that  seceded  will  soon,  in  some  way,  be  restored 
to  their  rights  and  franchises  in  the  Union, 
forming  not  the  least  patriotic  portion  of  the 
American  people ;  the  negro  question  vrill  be 
settled,  or  settle  itself,  as  is  most  likely,  by  the 
melting  away  of  the  negro  population  before 
the  influx  of  white  laborers ;  all  traces  of  the 


438  THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC. 

late  contest  in  a  very  few  years  will  be  wiped 
out,  the  national  debt  paid,  or  greatly  reduced, 
and  the  prosperity  and  strength  of  the  Repub- 
lic be  greater  than  ever.  Its  moral  force  will 
sweep  away  every  imperial  throne  on  the  con- 
tinent, without  any  effort  or  action  on  the  part 
of  the  government.  There  can  be  no  stable 
government  in  Mexico  till  eveiy  trace  of  the 
ecclesiastical  policy  established  by  the  Council 
of  the  Indies  is  obliterated,  and  the  church 
placed  there  on  the  same  footing  as  in  the 
United  States ;  and  that  can  hardly  be  done 
without  annexation.  Maximilian  cannot  divest 
the  church  of  her  temporal  possessions,  and 
place  Protestants  and  Catholics  on  the  same 
footing,  without  offending  the  present  church 
party  and  deeply  injuring  religion,  and  that 
too  without  winning  the  confidence  of  the  re- 
publican party.  In  all  Spanish  and  Portuguese 
America  the  relations  between  the  church  and 
state  are  abnormal,  and  exceedingly  hurtful  to 
both.  Religion  is  in  a  wretched  condition,  and 
politics  in  a  worse  condition  still.  There  is^ 
no  effectual  remedy  for  either  but  in  religious 
freedom,  now  impracticable,  and  to  be  rendered 
practicable  by  no  European  intervention,  for 
that  subjects  religion  to  the  state,  the  very 
source  of  the  evils  that  now  exist,  instead  of 


DESTINY— POLITICAL  AND  RELIGIOUS.  439 

-emancipating  it  from  the  state,  and  leaving  it 
i;o  act  according  to  its  own  constitution  and 
laws,  as  under  the  American  system. 

But  the  American  people  need  not  trouble 
themselves  about  their  exterior  expansion. 
That  will  come  of  itself  as  fast  as  desirable. 
Let  them  devote  their  attention  to  their  inter 
nal  destiny,  to  the  realization  of  their  mission 
within,  and  they  will  gradually  see  the  whole 
'<;ontinent  coming  under  their  system,  foiming 
-one  grand  nation,  a  really  catholic  nation,  great, 
;;glorious,  and  free. 

THE  EKD- 


'r 


<  f 


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